by James Axler
The woman followed up with a brutal knee to J.B.’s kidney as she clambered up his body and reached for his face.
“Violator!” she raged. “You are an offense to the Regina’s love!”
J.B. saw the woman’s hand reaching for his face with sharp nails. He turned his head as the nails struck, felt them bite against the flesh of his cheek half an inch beneath his eye socket. Then his hand was up and he snagged the Melissa’s wrist, twisting it and forcing her to curtail her attack. The Melissa shrieked with surprise, her weight shifting so that it no longer pressed against J.B.’s legs.
The Armorer scrambled out from under the flailing Melissa, powering across the dirt away from the shack, trying to generate some distance from his attacker in a crouching run. The Melissa followed, her teeth bared, setting her arms back for balance as she sprang after J.B.
He whipped the Colt Python around, targeting his pursuer. She was six feet behind him, her bare feet slamming against the ground as she gave chase. The Melissa started her leap as J.B. squeezed the trigger, and he watched incredulous as she sprang into the air and brought her feet above head height as his blaster spit its deadly issue. The bullet soared past where the Melissa had been, cutting through the air before embedding itself in the wall of Doc’s cabin, two feet from the open door. Then the Melissa’s foot snapped out and caught J.B. under the chin, striking with such force that his head jounced up and backward and suddenly his legs gave way beneath him.
Still running, J.B. caromed to the ground with a burst of dislodged dirt. The Melissa landed three feet away, right foot then left touching the ground milliseconds apart, sliding and spinning as she met the soil.
The woman in white turned to face J.B. even as she landed, but he recovered enough to send another bullet at her. The bullet was angled upward, targeting the Melissa’s chest where the robes met beneath her tanned cleavage. It should have been over then, the bullet drilling through the woman like boiling water on snow, but somehow she managed to twist aside, faster than the eye could follow. J.B. saw it but couldn’t understand it—the way the woman seemed to whirl in place to let the bullet slip behind her. He had seen that quickness once before, when the Melissa called Phyllida had attacked him in the redoubt before he had stabbed her.
Could they all do that? Could they all move at superspeed when they needed to? The thought filled the man with horror.
The Melissa charged at J.B., pivoting on one foot while whipping her other leg back to kick him in the skull. Lying in the dirt, tasting soil in his mouth, J.B. saw that foot cut the air toward him in a pale blur. And then he heard what sounded like a crack of thunder, and suddenly the foot was no longer coming at his face but rather sailing over his head, spewing blood.
J.B. watched, stunned, as the Melissa toppled to the ground beside him, screaming in agony. There was blood on her right leg and the section below the knee was missing entirely, just a ragged hunk of bone and strips of dangling flesh remaining. The rest of the leg and foot landed a moment after she did, fifteen feet to J.B.’s right, on the other side of him to the Melissa.
Doc stood a few feet away, the secondary barrel of his LeMat pistol swirling smoke where it had discharged a burst of buckshot like a shotgun. He had his shirt on now and his frock coat, and his lion’s-head swordstick leaned against the front door to his shack.
J.B. processed all of that in a fraction of a second, even as he began to move. He scrambled forward with the Colt Python in his hand, slapping its snout point-blank against the screaming Melissa’s head. He looked away as he pulled the trigger, feeling the blaster buck in his hand as it delivered a mercy bullet to the woman’s brainpan.
Then J.B. strode back toward Doc’s shack where the old man was returning to collect his swordstick.
“It seems we have much to discuss,” Doc said as J.B. caught up to him.
“Yeah,” J.B. agreed, “but not here. People will have heard that thunderclap of yours, and they’ll come running.”
“I do not doubt it,” Doc acknowledged, his eyes already roving the path and the trees beyond for signs of new enemies.
J.B. slipped past him and into the shack. “Just let me get my hat and the rest of Jak’s bullets,” he explained. “Then we can get out of here and mebbe figure out what the hell is going on.”
Doc agreed. Where previously it had been just J.B. against the whole of Heaven Falls, now things had changed. Now there were two.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
J.B. and Doc hurried through Doc’s cabin, grabbed the fedora and Jak’s spare ammo and slipped out the back door. It didn’t pay to be out front anymore. The sounds of those gunshots would attract attention, and if they didn’t then the bodies surely would. The paths around here were well used and it was the busiest time of the day, when the locals went to their designated assignments—the corpses wouldn’t stay unnoticed for long.
J.B. said nothing to Doc as they passed through the back and into the woods beyond. They moved swiftly, slipping into the shadowy cover of the trees that ran in a narrow band between the cabins and the crop fields. The trees were dense enough to provide cover for now, but J.B. didn’t rate their chances in staying hidden there for an extended period. He had something else in mind.
Once they were out of sight of Doc’s shack, J.B. halted and Doc stopped a pace away. Already they could hear the sounds of alarm as the first corpse was found. It wouldn’t take long for a patrol to be organized to hunt down the fugitive Armorer.
J.B. reloaded the Colt Python as he spoke to Doc. “What brought on the change of heart?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“You know, I think it was automatic,” Doc admitted. “Seeing you tussling with that woman brought to mind the number of times we have been in combat together, and I think my brain slipped into its default setting of assisting you.”
J.B. gave Doc a cockeyed smile as he heard this. “And what about now?” he asked. “Are you with me?”
Doc shook his head slowly. “My every neuron is telling me that you are a violator to the Regina’s love and that you should be turned in and chilled. I cannot lie to you.”
“But...?” J.B. prompted.
“Love can be a tricky emotion at the best of times,” Doc said wistfully. “I want to do the right thing out of love for the Regina, but seeing the way that slip of a girl fought you—the speed and ferocity with which she attacked—weighs uncomfortably in my mind. I believe that you have stumbled upon something here that the rest of us did not see. Perhaps we cannot see it. So I am trusting you, even though my every fiber tells me to chill you.”
J.B. reached out and grasped Doc’s hand, shaking it firmly. “You’re a good man, Doc,” he said. “When all this has played out, I can assure you you’ll have made the right choice.”
Doc nodded. “I hope so. Now then, where do we go from here? The ville is on high alert for your presence, and presumably it will be for mine now, also.”
“Not yet it won’t,” J.B. corrected him. “There were two witnesses to that altercation, and we chilled both of them. Right now, all anyone knows is that you aren’t in your cabin, which could just as easily mean you went off to do some hiving early.”
“Hiving?” Doc asked.
“Honey collecting, whatever you call it.”
“Irradiated honey,” Doc stated. “That is what you found, is it not?”
“I’m piecing it together,” J.B. admitted, “and I don’t have all of the facts. But there’s something in that honey that’s been messing with your head, and it has not just affected you. I saw Millie and Ricky get sucked into this thing, too, and Ryan nearly chilled me when I went to speak to him last night. If I’d stayed longer, he or Krysty would have.”
“Jak has been rather preoccupied,” Doc mused. “He left the shack we were sharing without a word a few days ago. It struck me as strange, but I did not press it.”
“And you’ve all been eating honey,” J.B. said.
“Not just honey,” Doc pointed out. “They
ply us with mead at the rallies—that is beer made from honey. Then there are the cakes, the dried fruit glazed with honey, the honeyed water. I did not even think about it.”
“Why would you?” J.B. asked. “Food in abundance—no wonder this place felt like paradise.”
“It still feels like paradise in my heart,” Doc admitted. “But why has this...mental recalibration not affected you?”
“I’ve been getting my water elsewhere,” J.B. said, “and helping myself to fruit off the trees whenever I got the chance, mostly because I took to checking out the ville limits and skipped out on the lunch ration. I probably just ate less of the standard diet.”
“So where do we go now?” Doc asked.
“The honey’s got some sort of psychoactive property,” J.B. stated, “probably because this whole area got showered with nuke fallout all them years ago. It’s probably in the plant life and so the pollen that the bees are gathering is riddled with it. That’s my best guess.”
“They have a huge store of honey,” Doc said. “Years’ worth. I think it has become an addiction with the Trai.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” the Armorer said. “The setup here is very obedient, and it’s efficient, too. People—groups—have designated roles.”
“Like a beehive,” Doc said in realization.
J.B. adjusted his glasses as he thought. “A while back, you told us that Regina is another word for queen.”
“Latin,” Doc confirmed. “Are you proposing that the Regina is some kind of...human queen bee?”
“I think so,” J.B. said. “You feel intense allegiance to her, trust her every word, believe in her love for you and for the people around you.”
Doc nodded uncertainly. “Please go on.”
“Bees are a female-led society, right?” J.B. said. “You have the queen and then what? Come on, Doc, you have book smarts.”
“The worker bees are female,” Doc recalled, “while the males are drones used for menial tasks, including reproduction.”
“The most menial task of all,” J.B. opined sourly. “The Trai have set up Heaven Falls the same way. They call this place the Home, the same way bees probably think about their hive. Women do all the important stuff—the child protection, the medicine, the sec duties—while guys like you and me get to chop wood and harvest food.”
“The level of agreement in this ville is so absolute that it is fanatical,” Doc said. “It is like a hive mind.”
“And what happens next?” J.B. asked. “How do bees set up new homes?”
“They swarm,” Doc said. “A new queen is born one day, and she departs with a few members of the hive, swarming to a new location beyond the limits of the original hive’s domain.”
“This place is cut off by quakes and mountains,” J.B. said. “They’re all but impassable. That’s why the Trai need the mat-trans. The new queen must be reaching maturity. They’re gearing up to swarm.”
“Or new queens,” Doc said. “Plural.”
J.B. looked at Doc with concern. “Does that happen?”
Doc shrugged. “We might assume that it could. You have seen the way the young women flaunt themselves at the rallies. Tantalizing their would-be mates through... My goodness!”
“What?” J.B. demanded, seeing sudden realization cross the old man’s face. “And keep the noise down, Doc, okay?”
“Do you not see?” Doc said. “The dance. The... This...” He showed J.B. the dance that the Trai women performed at the gatherings, mimicking the way they thrust their butts out and shook them. “That’s a waggle dance.”
“A what?”
“It’s the way that bees communicate,” Doc explained. “The waggle dance conveys information to other bees. These people have adapted it into some form of mating ritual, most probably without even realizing it.”
“Human bees,” J.B. said sourly. “People thinking like insects.”
“And do you know, I have only now realized why the Melissas are so called,” Doc told him. “It is Latin—Melissopalynology is the study of pollen and spores in raw honey.”
“You know this how?” J.B. asked.
“I know Latin,” Doc explained. “It is an ancient language that operates by strict principles. Once one knows those principles, it is a simple process to break down compound words into their component parts and—”
“Yeah, fine,” J.B. interrupted with a raised hand. “Look, Doc, I’m a fugitive here and you will be soon, too. That means we need to move quickly if we’re going to get everyone out of here alive.”
“What are you proposing?” Doc questioned.
“You saw the way that Melissa fought me,” J.B. said. “These people are superstrong, superfast. They’re superhuman, and I guess that’s something to do with the honey they eat. Mildred told me about the medical properties they’ve tapped, used some miraculous salve on my hand where I cut it...”
“Honey can have very strong health benefits,” Doc confirmed.
“If these people swarm, then the whole of Deathlands and beyond could fall to an army of superstrong, human bees,” J.B. said. “Now, I’m not much of a one to worry about who’s chilling who out there, as long as it isn’t me who’s getting chilled, but hive people wiping out the rest of humanity—that’s going to end in a bad place for all of us.”
“I could return to the honey storage tower and break the vessels there,” Doc proposed, but already he could see it was a colossal task, one that he would be restrained from long before he could make any serious dent in the supplies. “No, forget that. I could not do enough.”
“No, not while you’re a fugitive,” J.B. said, “I need you to get Ryan and Krysty. You can still move freely. You should be able to get to them and convince them what’s going on.”
“Convince them how?” Doc asked. “You told me that you had already approached Ryan with your suspicions not eight hours previously.”
“Doc, I’ve known you for a long time,” J.B. said, “and even now you still come up with words I have never heard anyone else say. If anyone can find a way to convince Ryan, it’s you.”
“I am a modestly accomplished orator,” Doc said uncertainly. “But I would dearly regret ruining the life that Ryan and Krysty have begun to build here for themselves, a life of peace so richly deserved.”
“It’s time to piss on their parade, Doc,” J.B. said calmly. “The people here have become insects. In their reasoning. In their actions. Ryan and Krysty have been here only two weeks, same as you. You came back from that and they will, too, if you can convince them. Mebbe the Trai were beekeepers once who got this junk in their systems and stopped thinking rationally. You want that to happen to our friends?”
Doc nodded in understanding. “I shall find Ryan and I shall do my utmost to convince him. And what will you do?”
J.B. gestured toward the edge of the wooded area. “I’m going to get my weapons back,” he said. “I figure I’m going to need them.”
* * *
HIDING THE LEMAT blaster beneath the folds of his coat, Doc made his way at a brisk trot to the nearby shack that Ryan and Krysty occupied. There were people all around, hurrying to their designated roles. Doc saw them differently now, knowing that they were worker bees fulfilling the tasks given them by their queen. It was disconcerting, made more so by the fact that Doc dearly wanted to join them and fulfill his own designated role, and so enjoy the adoration of the Regina.
“No,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head. “You are not this. It is not you.” He hurried on, willing away the all-consuming desire to serve the Regina.
Doc didn’t stop hurrying until he had reached Ryan’s front door. Doc thought of his wife, Emily, and his children, Rachel and Jolyon, reminding himself that he was a man and not a drone, never that.
He knocked at door with the silver lion’s-head handle of his swordstick. Krysty opened the door a few seconds after, and she smiled when she saw Doc standing there.
“Doc Tanner, as I live and breathe,�
� Krysty said. “What are you doing here?”
Krysty was dressed in her usual ensemble, but she looked different to Doc, the way she had tied her hair back in a neat ponytail, hair that he knew was alive and that hurt her to cut or to fuss with overmuch. To see her looking prim and proper like this, her rough edges smoothed down, made Doc wonder at how much they had all changed without even realizing it during their stay in Heaven Falls.
“Krysty,” Doc said, barging his way none too gently into the house, “I need to speak with you and with Ryan on a matter of grave urgency. Is Ryan still here?”
Krysty seemed oblivious to Doc’s fretful manner and merely stood aside and let him in. “He’s just through in the kitchen, finishing up the dishes.”
Doc strode through the main room to where Ryan was standing at the countertop wiping two plates with a damp cloth.
“Ryan Cawdor doing dishes!” Doc observed. “Will wonders never cease!”
Ryan looked up. “Doc, you’re here early,” he said. “I was just leaving for the farm.”
“Forget that,” Doc told him. “We all need to talk, right away.”
Krysty had followed Doc through the shack and she stood on the far side of the counter, looking at him with concern. “What’s happening, Doc?” she asked.
“We have all been duped,” Doc stated.
* * *
MEANWHILE, J.B. QUIETLY made his way back to the cabin where he had lived for almost two weeks, sticking to the cover of the trees that ran parallel to the path. He slowed his pace when he got within sight of the cabin, scanning the door and windows, checking for signs of movement within. J.B. didn’t emerge from cover until he was almost to the shack, having waited a minute or so for the path to become clear of travelers. When he finally emerged, J.B. pulled the brim of his hat low over his eyes to try to disguise his features.
