by James Axler
“Should we hit the beach?” Dean asked. “Easier walking.”
Jak answered, “They know coming. But not which way.”
“Gotcha.”
Tall palm trees laden with green coconuts festooned the sky, and the lower trees were heavy with breadfruit. No starvation here. The greenery stopped abruptly and Ryan found himself standing on the edge of a twenty-foot drop. At the bottom was a flat plain that stretched into the distance only to rise into jungle again after fifty or so yards. A thin creek flowed down the middle, some small birds drinking from the stream. Just around the bend on the other side, they could see the top of the wall around the ville. J.B. unfolded his telescope and gave it a once-over. Odd, no sign of guards.
“Riverbed,” Jak identified.
Doc beamed a smile, flashing his perfect teeth. “Ah, a most excellent location for a ville. The sea for fish, and the river brings freshwater to your door.”
“Dumb,” the teen corrected. “Coldhearts attack, only escape has no cover. Easy chilling.”
“Dark night,” J.B. muttered. “From the lighthouse, I thought the wall had iron plate bolted to the outside, but that’s wrong. It’s made of cargo containers stacked on top each other.”
Pushing some leaves aside, Ryan took a look through the scope. Damn, the man was right. A wall of cargo containers. The Deathlands warrior had encountered them before in the ruins of dockyards, just never this many of them all at once. There had to be a hundred of them in the wall.
The containers were always exactly the same, ten feet high, twenty feet wide, thirty feet long. According to Mildred, folks would pack them with whatever, and then load the containers on ships. That kept things fast and easy, with no juggling around in the hold of the vessel to try to fit one more item. Modular—that was the word she used. Like bullets in a blaster.
“Damn good wall,” Krysty said, passing the longeyes to somebody else. “Just stack two of the containers on top of each other and repeat. Could fill them with sand if you wanted, and no pirate cannon ever made would breach that wall.”
“You wouldn’t have to fill them,” Mildred said slowly, “if they were already packed. These boxes are air- and watertight. Sometimes they were welded shut if the cargo was valuable. If they haven’t been opened, the wealth of the old world is sitting right there, ready to be found.”
“Could be filled with anything,” J.B. said, compacting the longeyes and tucking the device away in his pack. He glanced at the others. “Wonder if the local baron knows this?”
“Let’s find out,” Ryan said, and started forward along the edge of the riverbank.
Reaching the beach once more, they headed for the ville, walking in the open with hands on their blasters, but no weapons drawn. They didn’t want to appear hostile and start a fight, or walk naked into a slaver camp. If possible, they would trade the two M-16 rapidfires they had with them for that purpose, or the secret of the cargo containers, for a ship, and leave without incident. Spilled blood would only make cutting a deal with the sec men that much tougher.
As Ryan rounded the bend and the ville came full into view, the first thing he noticed was the ruined dockyard. The smashed hulls of burned ships and rowboats lined the crude wooden docks, tiny birds pecking at the bodies sprawled everywhere. Not a soul could be seen moving about in the dock, or on the top of the wall. No guards were in sight, and no alarm bells rang at the approach of outlanders.
“I don’t like this,” Mildred said, drawing her piece and thumbing back the hammer. A wave crashed on the rock formations along the beach, spraying the woman with salt water, and she moved away from the shore.
“This could be Spider Island all over again,” Krysty said, her hair flaring outward.
Jacking the slide on his semiautomatic pistol, Dean concentrated on the ocean. No ships of any kind were in sight at the moment. But that didn’t mean a pirate ship, or one of those damn steam-powered PT boats wouldn’t appear at any moment with blasters blazing.
There was a gap in the steel box wall surrounding the ville, a section where only one of the shipping containers sat on the ground instead of two. Sandbags lined the top of the container, the cloth sacks bristling with deadly pungi sticks made from sharpened bamboo. A formidable barrier to cross.
“There’s the gate,” Ryan said, sliding the Steyr off his shoulder. “Let’s see if there’s anybody inside. I’m on point. J.B. cover the rear. Five-yard spread.”
“Got you covered,” J.B. said, working the bolt on the Uzi machine pistol.
Spreading out so as to not offer a group target to any snipers, the companions slowly walked toward the gate, the sand crunching under their new boots. In the jungle, monkeys ran amuck in the treetops screeching at the top of their lungs.
“Something has them spooked,” Krysty observed.
“Cannon fire?” Dean asked.
She shook her head. “Something a lot worse than pirates.”
The boy didn’t reply, but loosened the bowie knife in the sheath at the small of his back.
As Ryan got closer, he saw the gate box was shoved back a few feet, leaving a gap in the defenses. Raising a hand to call for a halt, he jerked his head in both directions and the companions split apart, half going to either side of the opening. Then Ryan charged forward and threw his back to the steel box, blaster at the ready. After a few moments, he eased to the corner of the container, then proceeded down the dark ten-foot passageway between the gate and the wall. His nerves were taut. This was the perfect spot for an ambush. Nearing the end of gate, he listened closely and heard birds, lots of them. Not good. Wriggling closer, the man chanced a quick peek inside.
“Fireblast,” he snapped, easing his stance and lowering the blaster. “Mildred, check this out.”
Quickly, the puzzled physician came down the pass and stopped dead in her tracks. A hundred different types of birds covered the ground, steadily pecking at something lying on the ground. Aiming at the scavengers, Mildred fired a shot and the creatures took flight, their beating wings sounding as loud as thunder until they were gone into the blue shy.
“Yeah, just what I thought,” Ryan said. Decomposing corpses lay everywhere in the ville, sprawled on the ground, some halfway through windows as if trying to escape, while others were locked together with knives drawn. The dead were dressed in rags, many wearing loose garments made of woven grass. All of them were barefoot. The ripe smell of rotting flesh was thick in the air.
“Plague,” Doc said, a quaver of fear in his voice. “We should not go any closer.”
“What? Oh, horseshit,” Mildred countered, and kicked over a desiccated corpse lying sprawled in the sand. The birds and insects had done a good job of stripping away the flesh on most of the dead, but this one was fresh, no more than a day or two old. Rigor had come and gone. There was very little meat on the dead man, which told her a lot.
“See? There are no pustules or skin eruptions,” Mildred said, drawing a knife to slit open the men’s chest. Some insects scampered from his lungs, carrying away tiny morsels of food.
She pointed with the blade. “Hmm, yes, look at the kidney, and the belly. This man died of Vibrio cholerae… he died of cholera, I mean. Not the bubonic plague.”
“What is?” Jak asked, holding a handkerchief in front of his face. “Like brain rot or bloodfire?”
“An enterotoxin. It comes from bad water,” Mildred said, cleaning her blade on the rags of the corpse, then stabbing it into the ground before playing the flame of her lighter along the steel. Alcohol would have been better, but she had none. This would have to do for sterilization. “I’d bet live rounds we’ll find their latrine right next to the drinking well. Damn fools did it to themselves.”
“Masks,” Ryan commanded in a no-nonsense voice, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. All of the companions tied some sort of cloth across their faces to cover nose and mouth.
“Not necessary,” Mildred said. “It’s spread by oral consumption, not breathing.”
/> “Can we stay?” Ryan asked bluntly. In battle, or cutting a deal with a baron, he knew what to do. But sickness like this was more Mildred’s speciality, and only a triple stupe would make a guess when he had an expert standing three feet away.
“Keep the handkerchiefs over your faces,” she directed. “Don’t touch anything with your bare hands, and for God’s sake don’t eat or drink anything unless it’s in a sealed can. We’ll be okay.”
“Must have hit like lightning,” Krysty muttered, looking away from tiny corpses, still clutched in their mother’s arms.
“Goddamn it!” Mildred raged, clenching her fists. “I could have saved this whole ville with a pocketful of rehydration salt and some tetracycline. Or even old furazolidone!”
Jak stared at the physician, wondering if she was making up those words.
“Got any of the chems?” Krysty asked bluntly. “Do they exist anymore, even in the redoubts?” The physician sometimes got this way over her inability to cure diseases that were such simple matters in her day, and now were the unstoppable plagues of the reality that was Deathlands.
“Can’t even remember what penicillin tastes like anymore,” Mildred admitted gloomily. Her med kit hung heavy at her side. She had the skill to cure the people, but not the tools. Sometimes the physician got so frustrated she thought she’d go as mad as Doc.
Going to the other side of the gate, J.B. found that a bulldozer was attached with lots of heavy chains to pull the gate open, its shovel flat against the container to keep it closed again. It was one hell of an impressive gate. Going to the driver’s seat, the Armorer found a corpse sprawled in the chair, skinny arms still on the controls.
“Aced trying to get out,” J.B. said, climbing into the dozer and checking the gauges.
“Nuke batteries have plenty of power,” he reported, thumping a control board. Rust fell from under the dashboard like dried blood. “But it’s out of fuel.”
“Let it stay there,” Ryan decided. He had no intention of wasting any of their precious fuel on operating the big wag. They would need every drop for the gateway to get them out of here. He only hoped it was still intact. People often destroyed predark technology simply out of fear. If that had happened to the gateway, well, he had another plan to get them out of the Cific, but it was a hell of a lot more risky than using the gateway.
“Wonder how they moved the boxes,” Doc rumbled, leaning on his stick, hands clasped on the silver lion’s-head handle.
“No biggie,” Dean said, pointing. “See? They’re empty.”
Ryan looked closer and noted that all of the containers had holes cut in the side to serve as doorways and windows. But there was no glass, and the doors were only hanging sheets of canvas.
“They lived inside the wall,” Ryan said, rubbing his chin. “Smart. Anybody tried to get in, and you’d hear them on the metal roof.”
“Must have been a bitch cutting the doors,” J.B. stated, tilting back his hat. “Those aren’t plas-ex holes. Mebbe they used chisels and hacksaws.”
“Take weeks,” Jak said grimly. “Months.”
“Mebbe the locals needed the steel boxes to keep out something no sandbag-and-wood barricade could,” Krysty said, her hair stirring to unfelt breezes. The sense of death in the ville was strong, but somewhere life was stirring weakly. It was like a tickle with a feather, almost too soft to feel. Then as quickly as it came, the sensation was gone.
“Triple red,” Ryan whispered softly. The hairs rising on the back of his neck, he raised the Steyr and scanned the area quickly.
“So you felt it, too?” Krysty said, clicking back the hammer on her S&W .38 revolver.
“We’re being watched,” Mildred agreed. “Don’t know from where.” The hundred holes in the encircling wall each seemed to stare blankly at the companions below. But from one of those dark holes, living eyes watched their every move.
“Could be the birds. Got to clear this place out,” J.B. said. Sliding the shotgun off his shoulder, he jacked the action and fired a 12-gauge round into the birds. The flock erupted in bloody feathers, the rest lifted into the air, only to settle down again and begin to feed once more.
Doc tried this time, the LeMat roaring louder than a cannon. Some birds rose into the sky, but most roosted on the top of the wall, settling in to simply wait until it was safe to return.
“Never leave,” Jak stated, leaning forward slightly so that his white hair cascaded down to cover his face. “Too much food, not enough us.” The position was a combat stance, something he did unconsciously to hide his eyes and thus mask what direction he would attack.
“When the belly speaks,” Mildred growled, “the ears become deaf.”
“Indeed, madam.” Doc arched an eyebrow. “Buddha?”
“Who else?”
Looking over the aced ville, Ryan scowled deeply. This was no place to make camp. The smell of the dead was attracting swarms of dragonflies, which had discovered the companions as a new source of nourishment. J.B. hauled a Molotov cocktail from his munitions bag, and the group passed around the bottle of fuel, rubbing small amounts on their exposed skin. The flies departed immediately, but they knew the bugs would return once the gas vapors had dissipated.
“Okay, we do a fast recce,” Ryan stated, hoisting his longblaster. “In pairs only. Stay alert, watch for traps. Check for any boats, or even canoes we might use. Krysty, with me. J.B. stay with Mildred. Dean with Jak. Doc, you’re the anchor.”
“Once more, I am Balador at the gate, my dear Ryan,” the old man said, thrusting his stick into the ground and drawing the monstrous LeMat. “None shall pass without a greeting from my trusty Mjolnir!”
“Crazy old coot,” Mildred grumbled. “Everybody in your time period talk like that?”
Doc smiled. “Only the educated, madam.”
As the others spread out to follow the wall, Krysty and Ryan cut directly through the middle of the settlement. The corpses carpeted the ground, and more than once they were forced to tread on the dead to keep going straight.
In the center of the ville, they found a huge cooking pit, now converted into a pyre. Bodies and cords of wood were mixed together, waiting for a lit match. The stench was unimaginable.
“Gaia! They tossed the poor bastards in, dead or alive,” Krysty said.
The man merely grunted in reply. He’d seen folks do a lot worse than that to stay alive. Ryan was no stranger to the savagery of man.
“Let’s try over there,” he said, indicating a box with iron bars over the windows. It was the only such cargo container with anything added to the Spartan exterior.
“Must be the baron’s home,” she guessed.
“Makes sense,” he agreed.
But as they started to leave, a whispery voice spoke from out of nowhere. “H-help…me…”
The man and woman swung about in a crouch, their blasters sweeping the nearby corpses for any hostile signs. But nothing was stirring, except the swarms of fat flies feeding on the festering dead. Then the voice came again.
“Ryan…” the voice called from the depths of the reeking pit. “For God’s sake, Ryan. It’s…me….”
Chapter Six
With white-knuckled hands, Henry Glassman grimly held on to the control board of the pitching PT boat. The spray whipped back his hair and stung his eyes as it came howling over the cracked windshield of the open cabin at the front of the craft. Its speed was phenomenal, and the huge steam engine aft of the vessel thumped louder than a cannon. The crew said that was normal, and he wondered if it was true.
Glassman still couldn’t believe this PT boat and its sec men were his to command. The healer had played for as much time as possible with Kinnison, praying his family would escape the clutches of the lord baron. But Kinnison had outmaneuvered him once more, and with his family under guard back on Maturo Island, Glassman had no choice but to do the baron’s dirty work yet again.
He had no idea why he was chosen for this task. The healer knew next to nothing ab
out the sea, and even less about the steam-powered boats called peteys by the sec men who rode them, and PT boats by everybody else. Rebuilt from the wreckage of some predark navy, the craft moved faster than arrows and carried enough weaponry and blasters to level a small ville. No pirate ship would dare to approach one of the deadly boats, even the huge four-masted windjammers that carried dozens of black powder cannons.
The sec men who served as crew on the vessels were fiercely proud of their status, and wore facial tattoos to show their rank and boat. Once you were made crew, you were crew for life. And the sailors feared nothing but the wrath of their master and the deepers, the terrible muties that lived in the cold depths of the limitless ocean and rose only after the worst storms to devour anything they could find. The sea muties were the main reason nobody tried to sail out of the archipelago and reach the mainland anymore. As soon as any vessel sailed past the last island of the Cific chain, the currents forced it back, and then the deepers attacked, dragging the vessels down whole into the sea. Volcanoes, hurricanes, pirates, slavers and Kinnison, this hellish prison was the extent of their world, as sure as if there were solid granite walls sealing the people inside.
Dripping with spray, Glassman ran a finger around the stiff collar of his new uniform, trying to get more comfortable. As befitting his rank of captain, Glassman wore loose gray clothing, and woven sandals that were easy to kick off if a man went overboard. Heavy boots could drag a sailor into the cold embrace of Davey faster than a knife to the neck. Around his waist was a wide leather belt with a flintlock sitting in a holster smack in the middle of his stomach, and a machete slung just below his armpit. The rest of the crew was dressed the same, except for the pilot, Sergeant Campbell. He alone carried a predark revolver. It was blatantly obvious he was the jailer assigned to watch over the healer, and to assure his obedience.
