by James Axler
Doc leaned into the open door of the wag and passed the instruction on to Charles Torino, who was back at the reins. “Make haste, Mr. Torino,” he explained. “We are leaving momentarily.”
Torino yanked at the reins and shouted to his horses, urging them to a gallop. Hanging from the open door, one foot on the floor of the automobile, Doc reeled off one last cacophonous blast from the shotgun pipe of the LeMat before ducking back into his seat. A bush burst into flame under the impact of Doc’s parting shot, and the figures of three scalies could be seen running from the destruction, their bodies speckled with burning flames.
In the seat behind Doc, Mary was rocking her baby gently. The child was wailing in fear, its screams so loud that they seemed to be inside Doc’s head.
As Charles spun at the wheel and pulled the horses’ reins, turning the wag around to follow the path that Ryan and Jak were carving through the fields, he flicked a glance at Doc. “Where are we going to go now?” he asked, urgency in his tone.
“Keep Ryan in view,” Doc instructed in the calmest tone he could muster. “He will see us clear.” With that, Doc turned his attention to the scalies that were rushing along beside the wag. Resting the LeMat’s barrel on the sill of the open window, Doc took careful aim and blasted the two nearest muties, dropping them to the ground as the wags sped away.
Farther down the road, Mildred leaped into the canvas-covered wag that Ryan had been guarding and shouted instructions. “Get this thing moving,” she hollered.
The driver, Patrick Clifford, glared at her, vexation on his creased brow. “Where?” he asked.
Mildred pointed to the right, where Ryan and Charles were bumping across the fields. “Follow the leader,” she urged, “and make it quick.”
Already, the other truck rig was doing a reverse turn, and its driver, Barry Adams, was gunning the moonshine-fed engine. The sturdiest of the wags that they had left, Barry would bring up the rear until they were out of this Venus flytrap.
In the tractor, Maude White was urging the engine to a reasonable speed as Alec took shots at the scalie mob out of the open canvas doors with his bow and arrow. He snagged two in the legs and a third in the neck as the tractor picked up speed and lurched off road.
Running a diagonal path, J.B. caught up to the tractor as it bumped into the field, blasting the Uzi in a wide arc to stave off further attacks. As the wag raced past, he flagged it and driver Maude pumped the brakes.
“Keep going!” the Armorer shouted. “Keep your speed up!”
Maude turned the wheel, feeling it shake through her grip as the tractor bumped over the uneven ground. As she passed him, J.B. grabbed the side of the covered part and hauled himself up. Hanging there, blasting short bursts of 9 mm bullets at the scalies, he repeated his instruction to Maude. “Keep going! Don’t slow down!”
J.B. watched as the final wag joined the convoy, accelerating to get away from the rampaging mob of muties.
LEADING THE CONVOY, Ryan wrestled with the awkward steering system of Mitch’s wag, cutting a path through the moonlit fields. The wag had the appearance of a converted harvester, and it handled like a drunkard, tottering this way and that despite his best efforts to control it.
Krysty had pulled herself on board, crouching behind Ryan’s seat and picking off scalies as they tried to board the wag. She was reloading her blaster, while Jak kept up the stream of covering fire from his position on the other side of the wag, when her urgent shout came to Ryan’s ears. “Ryan, eleven o’clock!”
“I see them,” Ryan rasped, urging the complaining engine to even greater speed.
Up ahead, a group of scalies was waiting, clubs and blasters in their hands. As the wag came closer, the scalies began to blast off shots at them. The bullets pinged off the metal plates that lined the vehicle, and Ryan felt one rush past his ear.
“Jak?” Ryan growled.
“On,” Jak replied, standing up in his seat and pumping the trigger of his Magnum blaster.
Jak’s shots spun off in the darkness, but two of the scalies either fell or had leaped aside as the wag closed in. Suddenly, Ryan thumped at another lever, and the wag picked up speed, leaping over the hillocks of the field with a howl of straining metal. Another bullet zipped past Ryan, and he ducked as the wag barreled onward.
Then they were on top of the scalies, bumping over their bodies and mashing them into the ground. Two of the tenacious muties managed to time the approach, and they leaped onto the front of the wag as it hurtled onward.
Jak lunged forward, using the butt of his revolver to strike the scalie to the left in the jaw. The scalie struggled backward, and Jak’s booted foot came up, kicking the thing in the jaw with a loud crack of bone. The scalie fell, sliding from the wag and under the wheels.
The second scalie had clambered up the side, and he was clinging there, reaching to snag Ryan’s right leg.
With the Smith & Wesson in her right hand, Krysty reached her left behind her as she dived at the scalie. “Hold me, lover,” she shouted, and Ryan’s arm whipped out, grabbing her left wrist tightly.
Ryan took Krysty’s weight as she lunged forward, shooting the scalie between the eyes at almost point-blank range. Its face covered in blood, the mutie tumbled away, rolling over and over as it fell through the long grass of the field.
Ryan yanked Krysty back, and she stumbled to stand upright, falling against him for a moment where he sat in the high driving seat of the wag.
“It’s not safe out here,” Krysty said, concern furrowing her brow.
Ryan was thinking as he drove the wag through a hedge that divided the rotten fields. “We’ll go back to Mitch’s place,” he decided. “It’s well-protected, and we can at least spend a night there.”
“What about Mitch and the woman?” Krysty asked.
“Chilled,” Ryan told her, scanning the horizon until he spotted the silhouette of the farmhouse against the inky, moonlit sky. He spun the wheel, turning the wag toward it, and the train of mismatched wags behind him turned to follow.
“Goodbye Tazewell,” Krysty muttered, clinging to the side of the stolen wag.
Chapter Nine
The wags rushed over the land, weaving through the trees that surrounded the outskirts of Mitch’s property. With effort, Ryan had got the converted harvester up to almost twenty miles per hour, but it shook as if it was in an earthquake. The only lighting came from the glowing stovelike engine of Ryan’s wag, but the other vehicles had lights that they used sparingly to check where they were headed and to ensure they didn’t slam into anything solid.
They seemed to have lost the scalies, or whatever those nocturnal creatures were, in the panicked withdrawal, and Ryan counted his blessings for that.
Slowing the engine, he pulled the wag around the main house until he was at the rear of the barnlike outbuilding, close to the wrecked remains of the stripped-down wags in the yard. He drew the wag to a stop, the joints of the rusting metal squealing in protest as the brakes were applied. Behind them, the other four wags slowed to a stop, pulling close to the unlit buildings.
Jak leaped from the wag, and, needing no instructions to know what was expected of him, rushed to the broken doors of the barn to check inside. Ryan followed him, pulling the SIG-Sauer P-226 blaster from its holster as he ran after the albino youth.
Watching them depart, Krysty turned back to the idling wags and began passing on Ryan’s orders. They were to wait until he and Jak had checked out some possible static. If everything was okay, they’d use the farmhouse as a safe haven for the night, a secure place to bed down. Some of the wag personnel complained, but they were all tired, and the encounter with the scalie mob had left them frightened.
Ryan found an oil lamp, a twin to the one he had shot earlier, resting on a tree stump just outside the barn. Using his butane lighter, he put a flame to the lamp and lit the oil. It cast a yellowish glow—pleasant, if weak—illuminating the area as he followed Jak into the outbuilding.
Jak stood inside, taking in the
scene through narrowed eyes. Mitch’s body lay in a puddle of congealing blood, the gunshot wound visible in his torso. His chest was still, and no breath escaped his lips. Part of his face had been torn away, and there were bite marks visible all over his body, rents in his clothes. Beside him lay the body of Annie. She had been gored through by a tusk, and the whole of her left arm and her right leg below the knee were missing. Sensing Ryan’s approach, Jak pointed to a corner of the barn, and Ryan saw Annie’s missing arm lying there amid the pig swill, feces and old, discarded bones; the fingers had been chewed to ragged bits, sharp bones sticking through the flesh. The mutie boars were nowhere to be seen. Even the one that had been chained up, the mother, was missing, just the metal ring remaining in the wall where she had been tethered.
“They got what was coming to them,” Ryan stated, his voice emotionless.
Ryan turned, and Jak followed the one-eyed man back to the parked wags. J.B. stood at the front of the wags alongside Krysty, his M-4000 scattergun cradled in his hands once more.
“We staying?” J.B. asked, fixing Ryan with his stare.
The one-eyed man nodded. “Let’s get everyone out of the wags, tell them to bring whatever they have to keep ’em warm. The four of us will go see if we can find a safe way inside.”
Nodding his agreement, J.B. made his way back through the wags to get everyone ready.
Once they had left the vehicles, Ryan led the ramshackle group of travelers and his companions toward the farmhouse. It was difficult to discern much in the subtle moonlight, but the structure looked to be in a state of disrepair despite its metal cladding.
“Let’s try the front, see if there’s a way in,” Ryan suggested, confirming his decision with J.B. and the other companions.
While Doc and Mildred shepherded Jeremiah Croxton and his band of travelers, making them wait in the shadows at the side of the old structure, Ryan, J.B., Krysty and Jak made their approach to the front door at a fast trot. Ryan checked over his shoulder as they rushed through the overgrown grass, wondering if there were any more scalies chasing them. There would be, sooner or later—it was inevitable. But if Ryan could get everyone inside, use the house as a fortress the way Mitch and Annie presumably had, they could either hide from or repel any further attacks by the nocturnal muties.
Ideally, the companions needed more light to see the path. Instead, they had Jak, who narrowed his eyes and made sense of the darkness. “Trap,” he murmured, pointing to something in the grass.
Ryan and the others followed where Jak pointed, noticing the glint of metal in the long, overgrown grass—a man trap.
“’Nother,” Jak stated, stepping off the path and moving through the long grass, his feet making an almost pleasant swishing noise as he did so. The companions said nothing, they merely followed his footsteps.
Then they were standing before the front door, a wide, heavy slab of wood with a scarring of old, cracked paint. The paint looked a dark color to Ryan—maybe brown or indigo—but it was hard to make out by the indifferent light of the stars. The door was preceded by a small porch, three wooden stairs leading up to it.
Pulling one of his leaf-shaped blades from a pocket of his camo jacket, Jak leaned forward in a half crouch and, very gently, touched the first stair with the butt of the blade. Then he waited, listening carefully. After a moment’s pause, Jak leaned forward to full stretch and touched the butt of the blade to the porch floor, listening intently once more.
“Skip steps,” Jak decided, glancing over his shoulder at the other companions. A moment later, the albino had leaped over the small flight of stairs and onto the balcony.
Following their alabaster companion’s lead, Ryan, J.B. and Krysty jumped up onto the porch.
By the time the others had joined him, Jak was leaning against the door, pressing his ear to it, close to the lock. After a moment, he turned his head toward Ryan, his sinister red eyes twinkling in the moonlight. “Empty?” he said, the word a question.
“You think so or are you sure?” Ryan asked, his voice low.
In response, Jak simply shrugged. He couldn’t say for certain.
The door was locked when Jak tried it and he stepped away from it. “Maybe window?” Jak suggested, peering left and right.
They could probably find a window they could either force or break, Ryan knew, but they were eating into valuable time. The majority of the house was clad in some kind of metal plating, like armor, that stretched around most of the first floor, reaching down to the ground. It was a homemade effort, pulled together from scraps. Ryan recognized parts of old automobiles and the corrugated cladding that would have once been used for roofing farm buildings. There was even an old advertising board showing a smiling woman with a drink, her bright smile matched by a single instruction in stylized white lettering on red: Enjoy.
“No,” the one-eyed man decided. “We’re too vulnerable out here. Let’s just get it open. J.B.?”
Without a word, the Armorer turned and eyed the upright struts of the wooden balcony that ran around the house. He pushed firmly against one, feeling the give in the strut. Then, with a swift movement, J.B. stepped back and thrust his right leg forward, kicking at the join of the strut with his heel three times in quick succession, until it snapped away, falling to the ground with a clatter.
A moment later, J.B. returned to the front door, grasping the length of broken strut in both hands. He examined the door for an instant before slotting the jagged end of the strut into the frame, just above the rusting lock. He grunted, twisting his shoulders, pulling and pushing at the strut at the same time, force and counterforce, until the frame split with a crack.
J.B. took a single step back and looked at the door, running his eyes over the frame. The door seemed to still stand solidly in place.
“Step back,” J.B. advised the others without taking his eyes from the door.
Jak crouched, pulling his Colt Python from its holster and waiting at the very edge of the porch, at the lip of the highest step. Having drawn their own blasters, Ryan and Krysty stepped across the porch, waiting to one side of the door, watching J.B. for any signal or reaction as he stepped warily back toward the door. J.B. swung the broken hunk of balcony banister around, as though some mythical vampire hunter wielding a stake. Then, using the rough, sharp end, he shoved against the lock of the door—hard—until the lock gave and the door swung slowly open on creaking hinges.
Even as the door retreated and the shadow-black hallway came into view, J.B. ducked to the side. Above him, about where his shoulders and breastbone had been just a fraction of a second before, a woodcutting ax swung on a pendulum arrangement, slicing through the air with an audible whoosh. Reaching its farthest point, the ax swung back and up, into the doorway, then sprang back again, swinging this way and that as its momentum ran down.
J.B. stood up from where he had dived, unconsciously adjusting the hat atop his head as he eyed the lethal ax. “Automatic haircutter,” he growled dismissively, raising his hand to halt the swaying ax. Crossing the threshold, he led the way into the darkened house, his senses on high alert.
Beside J.B., Jak’s nose twitched as he sniffed at the air.
“This place smells stale,” Krysty said in a hushed voice, her .38 Smith & Wesson held before her in readiness, “like a dusty museum.”
Ryan was at her side, the SIG-Sauer twitching this way and that as he scanned the hallway before them. Having left the oil lamp with Doc, there was no light except what little starlight came through the open door behind the companions, and the hallway appeared almost totally black. Ryan didn’t want to waste the precious butane in his lighter. He waited for his vision to adjust, trusting his own instincts as well as Jak’s heightened senses to alert them to any immediate dangers.
Gradually, their eyes adjusted and Ryan saw that they stood in an impressive, high-ceilinged hallway, wide enough to hold five men shoulder-to-shoulder. To one side of the hallway, set halfway along the passage, a straight staircase str
etched to the second floor of the ancient house. Off to the left, an open doorway led into a vast room, its details lost to darkness, while to the right, a closed door hid its own secrets. Ryan stepped across to it, resting his hand on the doorknob and turning it. The door was locked—perhaps even nailed—shut. That didn’t surprise him. Ryan had seen the building earlier, in the final dying light of dusk, seen how one side had crumbled, the roof caved in. That damage would likely account for the loss of most of the living space to the right of the front door, a full half of the impressive house. “Locked,” Ryan informed the others in a whisper. His hushed voice sounded loud in the stillness of the hallway.
The rising sounds of winds picking up came from the open front door, where it stood like a gaping mouth at the companions’ backs. Ryan looked back through it, watching the sliver of moonlight playing on the clouds as he considered their options. Finally he turned to Krysty, keeping his voice low. “Tell Mildred and Doc to bring the others inside,” he instructed, “and tell them to watch those steps. We’ve come this far without getting caught in a booby trap. Let’s make sure we keep a clean scorecard.”
Krysty leaned forward, bringing her face close to Ryan’s in the darkness. “Okay, lover,” she breathed close to his ear, kissing him gently on the cheek before exiting through the open door.
Once Krysty had left, J.B. addressed Ryan. “You want to check the house?” he asked.
“I want to,” Ryan pondered, “but I also want to get everyone inside. Plus, I don’t want to get too spread out. Mitch and his scrawny bitch were psychopathic. I’m wondering just what surprises they might have cooked up here.”
Jak scented the air with his finely tuned nose. “Not cookin’,” he stated. It was probably Jak’s idea of a joke, but neither J.B. nor Ryan cared to laugh.
KRYSTY LEAPED FROM THE porch and dashed back through the thick, overgrown grass, weaving around the man traps that were hidden in the yard. The wind was rising now, blowing her flame-red hair about her head and chilling the exposed skin of her face. Clutching the Smith & Wesson tightly, she reached around and cinched her shaggy fur coat closer, pulling its collar up close to her neck.
