by James Axler
But by now the millipedes were swarming over the vehicle, the companions firing in every direction.
Barely reloading in time, Dean fired as a millipede crawled into view around the side of the awning. Headless, the bug stayed on the material, pumping blood from its neck until Mildred kicked the legs loose and it fell away.
“Son of a bitch little bastards!” Mildred cursed in revulsion. God, she hated bugs!
Holding his bare sword in a tight grip, Doc dropped the hammer on the LeMat as he spotted a shape moving on top of the canvas sheet covering the rear of the wag. A patch of material the size a fist was torn away, and the corpse fell away, but another took its place.
“Haste is our salvation, madam!” the scholar told her, yanking back the big hammer on his weapon, searching for a clear target. A movement on the floor almost made the man shoot, until he realized it was an implo gren that had fallen out of J.B.’s munitions bag. The thought of what would have happened if he had shot the predark bomb made his blood run cold. That had been a close call! Too close.
Throwing the engine into high gear, Krysty tried to build some speed as she gamely fought to maintain control of the shuddering wag across the uneven ground. Every loose item in the vehicle was shaking and jumping, and as the wag went through a jagged ravine a fuel can went over the tailgate, followed by a blanket and a shovel. Holding on for dear life, the companions tried to keep fighting, but the gyrations were making it impossible to stay on their feet, much less hit what they were aiming at. Unfortunately, the bouncing and crashing seemed to have no effect on the multilegged bugs.
“Go slower!” J.B. ordered, dropping a magazine for the Uzi.
“Faster!” Dean yelled, over his banging 9 mm Hi-Power.
“Mother Gaia!” Krysty cursed, and the wag slammed down and then brutally up again, tilting so far to the right that it almost flipped over sideways before violently righting itself.
With the jolt, bugs and people went tumbling about. Then with a ripping sound, the ropes holding the big water barrel tore apart and it crashed to the floor. The lid popped off and out gushed the nuke water, washing away ammo clips, MRE packs, spent brass and a couple of dead bugs. One large millipede stubbornly stuck to the corrugated floor until Jak shoved his blaster between the dripping wet pinchers and blew out the rear of its ugly head.
Nearly slipping on the wet metal floor, Ryan couldn’t understand where the bugs kept coming from. The main swarm was far behind, which only left…Fireblast! He should have realized that sooner. Had to be dizzy from that earlier knock to the head.
Stumbling across the jumbled supplies, Ryan found the wooden box of Molotovs and stuffed two into his shirt. He wanted more, but that was all he could carry. Holding on to the ribs that supported the awning, he made it to the front of the wag and slashed open the side of the canvas with a stroke of his panga.
“Slow down when I tell you!” Ryan shouted through the passenger-side window.
“I’ll be ready!” Krysty replied, both hands white from their death grip on the shaking steering wheel. Her blaster was in its holster even though a millipede clinging to the outside of the driver’s-side gave her an unobstructed view of the grinding fangs in its segmented mouth. If she removed a hand from the wheel to shoot it, the wag would crash at its current speed, so she could do nothing but pray that the glass was strong enough for a little while longer.
Holstering his blaster, Ryan held on to the rib while he used a butane lighter to ignite the rag fuse. “Now,” he cried, throwing the bottle forward.
Not daring to use the brakes, Krysty took her foot off the gas and downshifted to try to control the deceleration.
Immediately, the wag sped forward and the Molotov hit the hard desert salt to explode into a pool of fire.
Seconds later the slowing wag drove through the middle of the flames, letting them play across the bottom of the chassis. Childlike wails of pain rewarded the tactic, and a rain of burning bugs fell to the ground in their wake.
As Ryan threw the next bottle, Jak passed him another Molotov, and the companions did it again and again until there was only silence from below.
“Should be clear by now,” J.B. said, both legs splayed as he rocked to the motion of the lolling wag. At the lower speeds, the Armorer had no trouble staying on his feet.
“We’re not quite done,” Ryan growled, grabbing hold of the tubular steel frame supporting the sideview mirror, and swinging into the cab to land on the seat near Krysty.
With both hands tight on the wheel, the redhead leaned far back and he fired the SIG-Sauer, the soft chug lost in the explosion of shattered glass as the last millipede was blown away.
“Now it’s finished,” he said, brushing the ejected brass and glass pebbles off her clothing. “You okay?”
“Been better,” Krysty muttered, dropping the speed of the wag even more. The gauges were still reading hot, and she could only hope the engine hadn’t been damaged in the firefight.
Tick by tick, the seconds slowly passed until the companions were a mile away from the battle zone, and they started to relax when a strong stink filled the wag.
“It’s coming from under the hood,” Ryan said with a frown, sniffing the rank cab air. Even with the windows open, it smelled like a roasting boot in here.
“Could be an aced bug frying on the manifold,” Krysty replied, furrowing her brow in concern. “Should we stop and check?”
“No,” Ryan decided. “Keep going. The farther we get from those bugs, the better.”
Steering around a small crater in the salt, Krysty started to agree when the engine went completely silent and every gauge in the dashboard swung their needles high into the red danger zone.
Chapter Nine
Throwing the gearshift into neutral, Krysty quickly killed the ignition and let the wag coast along until braking to a full stop in the lee of a small dune.
“Get sharp, people!” Ryan commanded. “Those things could be hot on our ass.” Climbing down from the cab, he checked the clip in his blaster. Four rounds remained, and he had two more loaded clips.
Wearily, the rest of companions climbed off the big vehicle and spread out behind it with their blasters at the ready. However, they knew there were no more Molotovs, and only three implo grens remained. A couple had been lost in the tumultuous fight through the salt flats, and their ammo reserves were low.
If the bugs returned, the implo grens were the first line of defense, then blasters, and after that, they would be reduced to knives and running.
After checking under the chassis for any unwanted passengers, Ryan, Krysty and J.B. went to the front of the wag, and Ryan flipped up the hood with the others covering him in case a bug was waiting inside. But the engine was clean of insects, only some scattered bits of fibrous black material and thick streamers of oily smoke.
“Burned through a fan belt,” J.B. said, lifting a piece for inspection, then dropping it and blowing on his singed fingers. “Two of them, in fact. Look down there.”
Leaning on the nuke battery, Ryan could see the damage, and agreed it wasn’t from the Molotovs. Just old belts that shredded under the strain. “It was running hot before the bugs appeared,” he added. “This wag is dead.”
“Can we fix it?” Krysty asked, looking between the two men. “Cobble something together with our belts, or rope, or something?”
“Mebbe,” Ryan replied sullenly, the lack of sleep wearing on his nerves. He felt constantly angry, and the throbbing of the gash on his forehead was affecting his judgment. “Hell, I don’t know. All our boots laces tied together wouldn’t take the strain. We could buckle some belts together, but they wouldn’t fit. Too wide.”
“And what rope we have is too thick,” she added. “We could loosen the weave, but that could take a hell of a lot of time.”
“And the longer we sit still, the closer they get.”
“Well, we’re sure as hell not going to walk six hundred miles.”
“Might have to.”
“And mebbe not. Now it could just be this heat, but I got a crazy idea,” J.B. said slowly, tilting back his fedora. “Might work, might not, but I’ll need a really sharp blade, the best we got.”
“Mildred, bring a scalpel!” Ryan called, motioning the woman over.
“To fix a wag?” the physician replied, coming their way.
“What are you planning to do?”
“J.B. has a plan,” Krysty replied, stepping back to give the others some more space to work.
Reaching into her satchel, Mildred pulled out a small canvas bundle. The scalpel was really only an box-cutter blade from a high-school art department, but it was the sharpest, thinnest blade they owned. “Whatever you’re planning is going to ruin the edge,” Mildred stated, passing over the blade. Even though the blade was segmented, every portion was precious.
“Can’t be helped, Millie,” J.B. said, starting to loosen a retaining bolt with a big crescent wrench. After a few moments, Mildred could see what he was planning to do, and bent over the engine to lend a hand where she could, her slim fingers reaching deeper into the complex machine than his muscular hands.
“Okay, we’re not going anywhere for a while,” Ryan stated, moving away so he wouldn’t block their light. The dune was throwing a much needed shadow across the hot vehicle, cutting the harsh sunlight to a tolerable level. “We better get hard in case they come back. We’re going to need a lookout, and you’re the lightest, Dean, so up you go, son.”
“Check!” the boy cried resolutely. Grabbing hold of the exposed ribs of the tattered awning, Dean pulled himself onto the roof of the wag. Balanced precariously on the riddled canvas, the boy shaded his face with a hand to try to see into the eastern light if the bugs were still in pursuit.
“No sign of them!” Dean called down.
“Yet,” Doc added, removing his sword from its ebony stick and plunging the steel into the salty ground nearby for fast access.
With a breeze spreading his frock coat like dark wings, the scholar expertly purged the spent chambers of his LeMat and started the laborious process of reloading the black-powder weapon. Three chambers were still charged, but Doc never liked to have such a thin defense between himself and the world. Time and time again, the universe had proved it wasn’t on his side, and Doc never planned on giving it an even break.
Whistling to get Dean’s attention, J.B. tossed up his Navy longeyes and the boy made the catch. Extending the telescope to its full length, Dean scanned the simmering desert.
“Let us know if anything comes this way,” Ryan directed, thumbing another round into the clip to finish the reload, then returning it into the grip of the SIG-Sauer.
“Even if it’s just a whirlwind or a tumbleweed,” he added grimly. “They got the drop on us last time from underground, so stay alert.”
“Gotcha,” Dean answered, the brass length of the telescope held in both hands for a steady view.
“Use fuel cans,” Jak said from the rear of the wag, passing down a container. “Set perimeter. Bugs come, we shoot.”
“A firewall,” Krysty grunted. “Best we can do, I’m afraid. Here, pass one over.”
Holstering their blasters, Krysty and Doc started to help the others haul the cans of fuel into the desert, placing them fifty feet away and about ten feet apart. Hopefully, the cans were far enough apart that shooting one wouldn’t start a chain reaction and ace the companions along with the millipedes. But there was no way to test it, so they simply had to depend on a best guess.
“Still clear,” Dean asked hesitantly. “Just some dust blowing to the west.” Or was it dust? Hmm, the boy wasn’t really sure. Could that have been smoke? He trained the longeyes in that direction again, but whatever it had been was gone now, dissipated by the sluggish currents rising off the warming plain of hard salt. Then he caught it again, high in the sky.
“Buzzards,” Dean announced. “About a mile to the east.”
In the process of checking his backpack for additional loose rounds, Ryan spun at that. “Must be feeding on the dead bugs,” he said, holstering the blaster and sliding the Steyr SSG-70 longblaster off his shoulder. “That’s a break for us.”
“How?” Krysty asked, loosening her shirt. Already she was perspiring badly. Maybe it was the presence of the salt, but this was much worse than any desert she had traveled before. Breathing was becoming difficult.
“We give them something else to eat instead of us,” Ryan said, working the bolt on the weapon and adjusting the focus on the scope. Taking careful aim, the man squeezed off a shot, and a second later there was an explosion of feathers in the distance and a buzzard plummeted from the sky.
“One bird won’t stop them,” Krysty said, mopping the sweat off her brow. “But the blood might attract other scavengers, scorpions, lizards, maybe even a few screamwings.”
“Sure hope not,” Jak muttered, rubbing an old scar. Damn muties moved faster than arrows and would attack anything with a ferocity unequaled in the animal kingdom.
“And there they are,” Ryan said pointing as two more buzzards began to circle the fresh kill. Raising the longblaster, he fired twice more in rapid succession and both of the birds fell dead.
“That’ll keep them off our back for a while,” Krysty said in grim satisfaction. “But not for very long.”
“No,” Ryan admitted honestly, “not for long.”
Tense minutes passed as the companions stood guard, watching the ground under their boots for any suspicious activity, while Mildred and J.B. worked diligently on the engine. Their muttered curses from the front of the wag gave no clear indication of how well the job was progressing.
Slowly rising high overhead, the blazing sun filled the desert with tangible waves of heat until a thickening haze of reflected illumination formed over the crystalline landscape. Loosening their clothing, and tying handkerchiefs around their necks to save the sweat, the companions kept the conversation to a minimum, and tried to remember to breathe through their nose and save irreplaceable moisture. However, the brutal combination of the rising temperatures and the salted dust seemed to be leeching the fluids from their flesh. But the companions knew survival tactics for this kind of territory. Sucking pebbles helped folks keep their mouths shut and conserved moisture. Plus, Mildred had long ago taught them to take some grease from the wheel bearings and smear it over lips. That stopped chapping and made a person feel less thirsty. The tricks helped a lot, but if the wag couldn’t be repaired, then the loss of the water barrel was going to prove a serious problem. Quite possibly, a matter of life and death. Aside from what little remained in the canteens, the companions were out of water and standing in the middle of a salt desert.
They heard the yowl of a big cat, possibly a cougar or mountain lion, and then a screech unlike anything they had heard before.
“The other predators have arrived,” Krysty commented calmly. “Too bad the cat didn’t pass this way. We could have sliced its skin into rawhide to fix the wag.”
Adjusting his eye patch, Ryan growled, “The problem with rawhide is that it can get too tight, shrinking so much the bearings burn out and junk the engine permanently.”
Draping a cut piece of blanket over his head as protection from the direct sunlight, Dean nodded at his father’s words as if filing the information away.
“Okay, I think we got it,” J.B. announced, closing the hood. “At least for now.”
“Here’s hoping,” Mildred added.
Careful of touching the metal handle on the door with her bare skin, the woman climbed into the cab, set the choke and tried the ignition. Incredibly, the diesel started at once without the slightest hesitation.
“All right, turn it off!” Ryan shouted, turning his back to the sun. “Let’s grab those fuel cans and get moving while we still can!”
“What you do?” Jak asked curiously, placing socks on his hands before lifting two of the steel fuel cans.
Shrugging out of his leather jacket, J.B. tossed it in
to the front of the cab and went to help reclaim the containers. Damn, it was hot! “Did the only thing we could,” he said, carefully placing his fingerless leather gloves around the handles of a couple of cans. “I split a fan belt in half lengthwise and used it for both pulleys.”
“That going to work?” Dean asked. “Doesn’t sound very strong.”
“It isn’t,” Ryan said, grabbing four cans and striding to the back of the wag. “So we have to go bastard slow and be a hell of a lot more careful. But it got us running again.”
Placing the cans roughly on the floor, Ryan went for more as Mildred pulled them away from the edge and started lashing them to the ribs with some spare rope.
“Can we do that again with another belt if one of these breaks?” Dean asked, panting from the effort of carrying two cans. They weighed a ton, but the boy was determined to always do his full share of the work.
“Nothing left to split,” Ryan stated, slowing his pace so the boy could keep abreast. “If these snap, we start walking.”
Once the wag was loaded again, the companions piled into the rear, with Ryan behind the wheel and J.B. riding shotgun in the passenger seat. Ryan gently tried the ignition and the diesel easily started. Slipping the transmission into a low gear, he drove away slowly, babying the overheated engine.
AS THE STRUGGLING wag headed for the horizon, swaddled figures rose from the ground like masked ghosts. They watched the vehicle for a brief while, then slipped back down into the earth as nothing truly human could, and were gone from sight.
KEEPING A CAREFUL watch on the dashboard gauges, Ryan drove the wag onward through the stifling heat. With the temperature rising every hour, even shielded by the roof of the vehicle, the companions had to apply more of the grease to their lips. But the heat was becoming oppressive, and the conversations lagged, everybody simply concentrating on breathing and trying not to exert themselves too much. There were a few scattered clouds in the blazing sky, small and darkly colored, but any shade they cast was nowhere near the companions and their tantalizing presence only seemed to make their sweating more unbearable.
