Neutron Solstice

by James Axler

  "Mephisto, my brave and cunning friend," he whispered to himself. "Best find these strangers and bring 'em here."

  He thought he heard the baron stepping toward the door inside the room, and he scampered away, set on his lethal mission.

  Chapter Twelve

  IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the morning.

  They had walked only fifty paces into the development when they saw a large board, fixed to a triangle of steel scaffolding. It was covered in clear plastic and riveted to a wooden backing, the whole thing smeared and stained by the weather. J.B. went up to it and wiped his sleeve over the plastic, calling to the others, showing unusual excitement for such a taciturn man.

  For once it would be absurdly easy for them to orient themselves.

  "Come here! It's a map of where we are. A map from before the long winter!" He fumbled in one of his capacious pockets for one of his favorite long, thin cheroots, then let his hand drop as he remembered that he'd smoked the last one too many mornings and too many thousands of miles behind him.

  The others gathered around, reading the notice. Doc read it aloud for Lori, rolling the prose style.

  "Live Oak Crescent is a master-planned community of topclass condominiums and townhomes, set on the edges of the picturesque Atchafalaya Swamp. Affordability is our watchword. These homes are richly appointed, light, and surprisingly spacious. Each has a separate video and audio room, along with a relaxanasium in stripped afromosia teak veneer. Hot tubs are optional extras that you'll all want to add to your dream home."

  "What a load of stinking shit," muttered Finnegan. "They look like little fucking boxes, right next to some more fucking little concrete boxes and some more right over there."

  Doc continued on. "The community center at O'Brien and Stewart features Miami Beach styling with swimnasium, tennisarium, sun deck and crafted gabled shingled roofs. Live Oak Crescent is simply the state of the top art in living convenience. Realistically priced, beginning at $250,000."

  "Is that a lot of jack, Doc?" asked J.B, "Seems so to me," replied the old man. "Upon my soul, but this must have been going on just before the ultimate madness wiped away our world. Toward the end of the year 2000. Yes, Mr. Dix, I should have said a quarter of a million greenbacks was a lot of jack, even then."

  Ryan was trying to make sense of three or four lines at the bottom of the notice, set in tiny print. He read the lines over to himself.

  "Qualified buyers, based on 3.2% deposit… monthly P&I payments for years one thru fifteen of…low 1.8% loan fee. The APR is 17.35. Ask our salespersons for details of zoning, fees and state and federal association costings and taxes. Where applicable."

  It might as well have been written in Russian for all the sense it made to him.

  "You can see where we are and where the place stretches out. There's the center of the ville," said J.B., pointing to where the roads seemed to converge on something called the Senator Fitzgerald Hackensacker Memorial Shopping Mall.

  Most of the main landmarks in West Lowellton were on the map: the Counselor Zak Robbins Playpark, near the narrow river that wound through the ville; the Charles C. Garrett Olympic Pool and Tennisarium; the Neal R. Langholm Golf Course, straddling the river. The main shopping area was shaded with a faded purple overlay, and the location of several motels was shown, including the Snowy Egret on the far side of town, near where West Lowellton oozed out from the edges of Lafayette. A Holiday Inn was only a half mile or so from the dramatic crimson arrow with the message: YOU ARE HERE.

  "First time in years I've known where I am," commented Ryan Cawdor.

  The houses around them were mainly single-story, stained green with mosses and lichen. Most of their windows and doors were still intact, though several of the roofs had collapsed where damp had seeped in and rotted the supporting timbers. "Where do we go?" Lori asked. "I figure that one of them motels could be our prime target," replied Doc. "From the excellent state of these buildings, it's reasonable to believe they might be more than adequate for shelter."

  Ryan shook his head. "I just don't believe this place. Doc, you got knowledge like no man I ever met. I never seen houses all together like this from before the long cold time. How come it…? How?"

  "Neutron missiles, like we figured. They seed the land with them, and the physical structures aren't hardly touched. Within about ten days, ninety-eight percent of living creatures are on their way across the dark river from which there is no returning."

  "You mean they fucking die, Doc?" said Finn. "Yes, Mr. Finnegan. That is what I mean."

  "Then what's happened to all the fucking bodies?"

  AS THE BRIGHT, dry summery morning progressed, they , saw them everywhere. Tumbled, scattered bones on the edges of the sidewalks. On porches. In gardens. Bits of ivory among the overwhelming shades of green. Here and there some creatures of the nearby wild had feasted on the bodies, ripping apart the skeletons. There might be a single long, straight femur, its end gnawed smooth. Or a skull, grinning emptily, yards from the skeleton it had once topped.

  "It's a boneyard," said J.B,

  "Yeah. I seen bodies, dried up like old leather, in some of the redoubts we found over the years with the Trader. You know?"

  "Sure. Like husks. Lips peeled off yellow teeth. All of ‘em grinning at us. I recall that. But this is just bones, white as snow."

  It was an unusually long speech for the phlegmatic Armorer. But it was a sight to stir anyone's imagination.

  A century ago, the whole town had been blasted away from above. Its streets and houses had been scoured clean of inhabitants. Families had been destroyed with the demonic breath of the neutron bombs. Russian submarines off the coast had lain still and patient and received the signal that told them this was no drill. No false alarm. No testing situation.

  And the people had died and the houses remained. It was a cemetery, fifty miles wide and forty deep. Only in the swamps had people survived; many of their descendants were now muties. They avoided the ruins of the old villes, fearing the contamination they once harbored. The whole of West Lowellton was like some giant time capsule, frozen since that dread January day a hundred years ago.

  Ryan was fascinated and wanted to investigate each home and shop they passed. But J.B. warned him of the need for food and shelter.

  "That Baron Tourment's going to have patrols of sec men after us, Ryan."

  "Sure."

  "Look at 'em later."

  "Yeah. Guess so."

  THERE WERE surprisingly few buggies or wags of any kind. Ryan's guess was that when the alarms started to shrill, lots of folks would have headed out of town, away from the missiles they knew would wipe away their homes. But nothing had prepared them for the reality of Armageddon. All the flix that Ryan had seen in old redoubts had warned about painting windows white to cut down the, flash-blast. Blankets soaked in water over doors. Sandbags. Refuge under stairs and in storm cellars. Brown paper bags over your head.

  It hadn't been like that. Best way of saving your kin from the long agony of rad-poisoning was to take out the pump-action scattergun and blow everyone's head off, and finally kiss the warm barrel yourself.

  Some had done that. Ryan had seen the corpses, half the bone of the head missing, the corroded ten-gauges still between the clenched jaws.

  There was one saloon wagon in a side street, its tires long rotted, stripped down to metal by years of high winds, blasted by sand. The glass remained, though its surface had been hazed until it was opaque. A branch off a nearby lime tree had fallen over the hood. Krysty moved it, revealing two stickers, peeling off the chrome fenders.

  One said, "I brake for children and animals and patriotic Americans." The second one said simply: "Happiness is the biggest L.R. Missile."

  Doc shook his head, saying nothing.

  AROUND NOON they found a street showing a full row of shops. Ryan couldn't get over the amazing sight. He'd seen old vids, flix and pix in mags. This was small-town U.S.A., standing there in front of his eyes. All that was m
issing was folks.

  Some of the windows were broken, and there was clear evidence of looting. Also, the streets here were free of bones. As they stepped along, keeping to one side, Ryan glanced in at the storefronts.

  Names clicked by, some registering, some not. Some of them had sold products he'd heard of. Some of them were obscure and incomprehensible.

  What was Alice's Tofu Joint? What was tofu? Some kind of food, he guessed, from a placard as faded as a Brady daguerreotype.

  Pick'n Mix. Garry's Auto-Tuner—best muffler service in West Lowellton. Ynez Lobos, Realtor. Ryan didn't know what a realtor was, but he figured it was someone who looked after other people's houses for a fee.

  "This is fucking way-weird," said Finnegan, spitting at a red hydrant in the street,

  Tien & Quarter. Circuit City, West Lowellton Estate Protection. German shepherds, man-killers. Armed patrols around the clock and back again. Save your loved ones and your possessions. Let us do the killing for you.

  "Sounds like the Deathlaads now," said J.B.

  Guns. Guns. Guns. Guns. The storefront shouted the word again and again. The Armorer paused, wiping at the glass. In sticky gold letters, some of which were missing, the name of the ex-owner from the year 2001 declaimed itself.

  Angus R. Wells. A native of Louisiana from birth. Carry arms—it's your right.

  "Empty," said J.B. disappointedly. "Not a blaster left in the place."

  "Guess the Cajuns must have taken 'em," Ryan said, stepping around a dead snake that must have been close to fifty feet in length when alive.

  The Armorer shook his head doubtfully, swatting away a hornet with his fedora. "Guess not."

  "Why?"

  "This place closed up in January 2001. It would have had the best and latest blasters of the day. What they called car guns and house guns. Small caliber, pretty pistols. Berettas and Colts. Big mothers like the later Pythons and the Pumas. And hunting rifles from Spain and Czechoslovakia."

  "Sure." Ryan wouldn't argue with J.B. when it came to discussing weaponry.

  "I seen what them double-poor dirties had. Old black-powder muzzle-loaders and muskets that were old before the winters came. Nothing from a store like this one here."

  They moved a little farther on. Krysty stopped, tugging at Ryan's sleeve and halting him, while the others waited.

  "What is it, lover?"

  "I heard those swampwags again. Way off, behind us."

  "That's no problem. If'n it comes to a firefight in a place like this, we could take on the whole of the baron's fucking sec-men army."

  "There was something else."

  "Yeah?"

  "Whistling."

  "I heard a whistle," said Lori, her blank face lighting for a moment.

  "You did? When?"

  The two women looked at each other. Lori answered Krysty, fumbling for the right words. "Soon gone. Not a long time. High and… weak."

  "That's it. Very high frequency, Ryan. Repeated pattern of notes. Like a signal."

  "Ahead or behind us?" asked J.B.

  She pointed wordlessly down the street, in front of them.

  "Far off?" asked Ryan.

  She shook her head at the question. "Difficult, love. All these buildings. Not used to it. Even back home in Harmony it wasn't like this."

  "I doubt, Miss Wroth, if there are many places like this left in the whole of the United States of America. I beg pardon. In the whole of Deathlands."

  AT RYAN'S ORDERS, they spread out even more.

  They covered both sides of the sunlit street, their blasters ready, their nerves stretched tight with tension. In this part of West Lowellton the greenery hadn't gained so much of a stranglehold, and the street was still fairly clear and the buildings mainly undamaged.

  Ryan squinted so that the line of small stores became hazy, the outlines blurring and softening. And it became like an old vid from before the wars. All it lacked were the smiling, bustling throngs of women and children, busy at their shopping. And there were no cars. All the old vids seemed to show roads jammed with wags.

  On the right was an ice-cream parlor, its sign fallen down and disintegrated into splinters of chipboard. Another realtor's sign boasted that it found houses For the people and by the people. There was also a store selling do-it yourself outfits for home security, ever a barometer of social fears and neuroses.

  One of the roofs that had given in to the ravages of a hundred years was composed of red shingles. It had been called the something Hut; the first word had vanished.

  They first saw the graffiti in an empty lot next door.

  It was sprayed in a shimmering white paint, in ornate, rolling letters three feet high, on the wall of a hardware store.

  THIS LAND IS OUR LAND. KEEP OUT ALL LIVING DEAD AND FRENDS OF THE BARRON.

  The paint reflected the sun, making Ryan blink.

  "Over there," said Krysty, pointing to more painted lettering. This time it was scrawled across the main window of T-Shirt City.

  Looking around, Ryan crossed over to examine it. TEN MORE STEPS AND YOU DEAD, it said.

  He reached out with the index finger on his right hand, hugging the G-12 in his left hand. Touching the rolling letters, he stared in disbelief at his finger.

  Sticky and fresh with its smear of white paint.

  Chapter Thirteen

  "IT'S LIKE THE DMZ in 'Nam," said J. B. Dix. "Read 'bout, it, No-go region, for both sides. What we heard 'bout this Baron Tourment, he controls most of the land round Lafayette. But not this ville of West Lowellton."

  "White wolf," said Ryan. "Or snow wolf. Take, your pick. What we heard back in Moudongue, it's renegades. Gang of wolf's-heads. Outlaws."

  "Slumgullions," commented Doc Tanner.

  "How's that?" asked Finnegan.

  The old-timer bared his strong yellow teeth in a ferocious grin. "Good word, is it not? A cant perversion of the tongue, but it sounds like what it means." Licking his lips, he savored the word again. "Slumgullion. A rowdy fellow, living beyond the law. And as we are all aware, to do that you most be honest."

  There were times when Doc simply didn't make any sense to anyone.

  Bedrock bedding prices. Buy now—tomorrow may be too late.

  The white lettering was inside a store window a few yards down the street. But it was obviously written before the neutron missiles were dropped over the Louisiana bayous.

  "What do we do, Ryan?" asked Krysty, glancing up and down the street. Behind them, a small armadillo scuffled across the street, but otherwise the avenue was deserted.

  "We could try and make it through the swamps to the gateway. But I figure them Cajuns are going to be looking for us. And there's those dead and alive fuckers to keep clear of."

  "What about that warning?" asked Finn, pointing back at the first of the freshly painted signs.

  "Place like this—" Ryan began, pausing as he looked around the rows of long derelict buildings, "—place like this could get you cold-cocked from anywhere. Man with a good blaster could pick us all off before we got a sight on him."

  Both Ryan and J.B. had outstanding memories for trails and maps, and both had a clear sense of where they were in relation to the rest of the ville. If the Baron that everyone was shitting their pants over ruled most of the region, then West Lowellton looked like the best venture, they decided. But if there was this street-gang holding it, then they had to find some place large in which to hole up.

  "Big motel," suggested J.B.

  "Yeah," Ryan nodded. "Yeah. There was something called a Holiday Inn. We passed it 'bout a half mile back. Be a good place."

  "There was an old vid-house near there, with a real pre-chill name. The Adelphi." J.B. shook his head at the absurdity of the names in the prenuke ville.

  "Probably showing some anticommy prop-vids. I read that was all they showed round that time." Finnegan was leaning against the wall of a store, Barney's Beanery, that had once sold health foods. There was an addition to the sign: and gun store.

/>   Faded by thousands upon thousands of days of sun and wind, there was some crude lettering on the wall of a store across the street.

  "GOD WANTS YOU," it said.

  Underneath it, in the same white paint as the earlier graffiti, was written: "THEN LET HIM FUCKING COME AN GET ME."

  Krysty heard the sound first.

  It was a faint tinkling noise, thin and metallic, a long way from where they stood. It had an insistent rhythm, clicking away, first two fast beats, then a slow one. Two fast, one slow.

  Ryan considered running for the rows of neat white houses behind the stores to lie in ambush for whomever was coming. But it didn't take a tactical genius to figure out that their attackers would have better local knowledge than they did.

  "There's a chill in here," said Finnegan, flattening his snub nose against the dusty window. "Just bones heaped together."

  "Nothing else? No blasters?" asked J.B. "No. Big poster on the back wall, half-torn. Says, 'Brownsville Texas is the fucking pits.' Oh, and one other over a door. Big heart with the words 'I love Lafayette.' That's all they wrote."

  The chinking sound was growing closer. Krysty looked at Ryan. "You know there's two, mebbe three of them , doing it?"

  "I can hear that."

  "So?"

  "Let's, go find us that Holiday Inn place we saw on the map."

  Grimacing, Doc straightened, pushing at the base of his spine with his right hand. "I fear I am not so supple as once was. Did you say we were all going to seek out a Holiday Inn in which to rest?"

  "Yeah, Doc."

  "Then let us trust that the best surprise we get will be no surprise at all."

  "Sure," replied Ryan, wondering what the old man was babbling about.

  THE LARGE SIGN that had once welcomed Kiwanis, Elks, baseball teams and homecoming queens had rusted and fallen to the dirt, probably half a century ago.

  "What the fuck is a Kiwanis?" muttered Finnegan, not really expecting an answer and not getting one.