Deathlands 51-Rat King

by Axler, James

  "Screw him."

  "Brave words when he's not here."

  "Screw him. Although I'd rather screw you."

  Tricks sighed as Baker moved toward her, and she reached for the small, palm-sized stun gun she'd taken from the R&D repository some time back for just such an occasion. But despite this distraction, she still kept an eye on Doc, who had started to make small whining noises in the back of his throat.

  THE WIND HAD BUFFETED Doc until he was huddled into a corner of the cavern, hunched into a fetal position, trying to protect as much of his aching body as was possible from the sheer force of the air and the myriad small pebbles and specks of dust and dirt that whipped and stung against exposed skin. His eardrums hurt where the roar of the wind drove pressure against them until he felt that they would burst.

  And yet he could still hear Lori screaming over the roar of the wind. It was so plaintive, so helpless, that it overrode Doc's desire to protect his eyes and ears. He looked up, screwing up his eyes to try to cut down on the amount of dust that could tear at them. The force of the wind was such that his eyes dried almost immediately, and he blinked painfully.

  The phosphorescence provided enough light for him to see that Lori had been blown along almost to a point where she was hidden by the encroaching maw of darkness. She was clinging to the rocks, her clothes almost torn from her body, dark flecks on her skin showing where the flesh had been ripped, raising bloody weals.

  Perhaps it was his imagination. Perhaps it was his conscience. Whatever, Doc was sure that he could see a pleading light in her eyes, despite the fact that logically he shouldn't be able to tell from this distance, in these conditions.

  He knew that if he didn't go to help her, then she would surely die.

  And yet she was already dead. Doc knew that. He could recall with an awful clarity the nightmares he still suffered where he saw her consumed by flames. Lori was dead. She couldn't be here. Yet she was.

  And he couldn't fail her again.

  AS BAKER ADVANCED on Tricks, Doc gave a loud yell and almost lifted himself off the couch.

  "I really think you'd better get the Gen," Tricks said softly as Baker turned in shock. "I think he's ready."

  IT WAS ALMOST impossible to describe the sensation of moving against that implacable gale. It was like drowning in air, yet the stones and dirt that whipped against him made it at times seem like fighting against a moving, living wall of rock. And still Doc pressed on, his wiry frame pushing every ounce of strength he had into forward progress.

  He got to within a few yards of Lori before he looked up again. What he saw made his dry eyes fill with tears, caused him to pull up dead.

  There were now three figures being blown into the maw of the tunnel. Lori wasn't one of them.

  "Emily?" he whispered. Doc felt as though any sanity he might be clinging to was about to be severed, driven from him by the vision that was now before his eyes: his wife and children being thrown into the darkness by the roar of the gale.

  And then the greatest contradiction of all hit him: how could he be fighting against a howling wind that was blowing his family in the opposite direction? Many things in nature had changed since skydark, but not something as fundamental as this.

  Doc dropped to his knees and howled.

  MILDRED SHOOK her head, her beaded plaits swaying about her shoulders.

  "No way. It just can't be."

  The doctor sitting opposite her smiled sadly. "You know something, Mildred? If you were sitting here right now, where I am, you wouldn't be in the slightest surprised by what you're doing."

  Mildred fixed him with a stare. "Come on, you're not telling me that I haven't got a valid point. More than anyone else you have sitting here, I know that an initial diagnosis can be misleading…"

  "Listen to yourself, Mildred. It's typical denial. We've run a full series of tests. You have a cyst. It's not major, and it can easily be removed. There won't be a problem."

  Mildred sat back and looked out of the window at the freeway beyond the hospital entrance. All of a sudden she felt so lonely. Everyone out there seemed so carefree, so untroubled by an invasion of possibly hostile cells within their own body.

  "Mildred?"

  She turned back to the doctor opposite. Strange, but he seemed to know her well, judging by his attitude, yet she couldn't remember ever seeing him before.

  "I'm sorry." She smiled. "I was just…"

  He nodded in a typically medical manner. So understanding, yet also so impersonal. "Don't worry about it, Mildred. It won't be a difficult procedure. In fact, we could do it right now."

  Before Mildred had a chance to react, he pressed a buzzer on his desk, and she heard the oak double doors behind her swing open. She spun in her chair to see, with some shock, a fully operational surgery in the room she was sure had been a reception when… When she came in?

  Mildred turned back. "Wait a second here. Don't rush me on this. I—"

  She stopped dead. The doctor was dressed in a surgeon's gown, but instead of a surgical mask and cap, he was wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood.

  "You're not getting your hands on me, motherfucker," Mildred growled angrily, springing to her feet. But any attempts to escape were stalled by the iron grip of two men who appeared behind her, seemingly from nowhere, to grasp her firmly by the arms. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see that both men also wore surgical gowns and Klan hoods.

  "What's this about?" she demanded, conserving any energy for an attempt at escape when their grip was relaxed.

  "Simple. We're going to remove your cyst. But as you may have a reaction to the anesthetic, we're going to dispense with it."

  Mildred felt a cold sweat break out down her spine. From the tone of his voice, she knew that he meant every word. They were going to operate without an anesthetic. For the fun of it. The shock would probably kill her.

  The two men dragged Mildred into the operating room and pulled her onto the operating table. Not for one second did they release their grip. Mildred tried to struggle as she was hauled across the table, but to no avail. They remained completely implacable.

  When she was on the table, one of them took full control of her, holding her down with incredible strength while the other secured her hands and feet with restraining straps. She kicked out at him, catching him under the chin and snapping his head back with a force that should have rendered him unconscious.

  He didn't even pause in his actions.

  When Mildred was secured on the table, the doctor walked into the operating room with an almost obscenely casual air, humming gently to himself. He was carrying a tar-and-gas torch—she could tell by the mixed odor in the otherwise sterile atmosphere.

  The sweat gathered in a tiny pool at the small of her back. The smell of the torch reminded her of her father, and the way he burned inside his church. She could imagine him, praying for his soul as the Klansmen gathered outside, watching the building burn. She could imagine his prayers, desperate for his own life but still pleading for forgiveness against the scum who were killing him slowly and painfully.

  With a flick of an expensive gold lighter, the doctor lit the torch, which crackled and flared into life. The heat was noticeable even from several yards.

  "If we're not going to use an anesthetic, the least we can do is cauterize the wound," the doctor said, his eyes laughing behind his Klan hood.

  One of the others picked up a scalpel and advanced toward her. He ripped off her clothes and poised the scalpel, which caught the light of the torch and flickered over her.

  Mildred, knowing she was completely powerless and doomed, gave in to her frustration and fear, and screamed.

  "I THINK SHE'S about ready. Go and tell the Gen."

  The guard nodded at the tech, and turned to leave the room. When he reached the door, it was opened by Murphy.

  "Sir, the woman has reached a state of readiness. I was just about to report to the Gen, sir."

  Murphy nodded. "Good. The old man and the bo
y are still alive. And now she's ready. The mutie albino outsider seems impervious, but I guess no process is foolproof."

  The tech, feeling that the R&D department was once again being impugned by the Army, was about to say something when a warning glance from the guard silenced him.

  The hell with it. Let the Army thugs think what they liked. The outsiders' resistance to interrogation had been reduced to virtually zero in a fraction of the time their heavy-handed methods would take.

  "Army bastard," the tech muttered as Murphy and the guard left. The insult was wasted on the unconscious Mildred, but it made the tech feel better.

  Chapter Five

  Ryan was back in Front Royal, and all hell was about to break loose.

  The one-eyed man was in a gaudy house even more run-down than those he usually encountered on the trek across the Deathlands. The old stone walls were scarred and pitted with the marks of a hundred bottles, a thousand fights. Dried blood stained patches of old plaster that the gaudy proprietor hadn't bothered to clean. Perhaps he figured that the marks would serve as a deterrent to anyone fool enough to start another brawl.

  Guess he was going to be wrong. The almost deserted "reception" area, where an ugly and multiscarred bar-keep served drinks to waiting customers, was occupied by three bored-looking sluts of indeterminate age and two drunken men who looked far past the point where they would be able to perform. And then there was Ryan.

  Try as he might, the one-eyed man couldn't recall exactly how he had reached this place. Through a vague fog of memory he could remember the redoubt, the escape and the strange machine firing trank darts. And then?

  And then this. He looked at the glass in his hand, filled with a spirit that tasted as foul as the glass looked, and wondered how many he had downed before becoming aware he was in a gaudy house.

  Just looking at the glass seemed to be all the cue one of the drunks needed.

  "Hey, you, One eye," he yelled across the room.

  Ryan tried to ignore him. No point looking for trouble. It was obviously looking for him. Just let it come and roll with it. It wouldn't take long.

  "Shit, the fucker's deaf, as well as half-blind," the other drunk yelled, directing the comment at Ryan.

  The one-eyed man turned to face them, taking them in and weighing their possible danger areas. The one who started the exchange was tall and skinny, no more than 140 pounds and over six feet tall. He had long, loose, lean limbs, his arms dangling at his sides as he swayed gently in a drunken haze with an idiot grin on his face. An old steel bayonet, rusted but still lethal, hung from his belt. His eyes held a mean gleam.

  His companion was about six inches shorter, and fifty pounds heavier. All of it was muscle. He had a homemade knife in his belt, jagged metal attached to a wooden handle with wire. It looked more like a tool than a weapon, but still lethal enough. Like the taller man, he was dressed in cutoff jeans that were stiff with oil, dirt and sweat. Both wore heavy combat boots that, perversely, seemed to be immaculately maintained. The men were naked from the waist up, which only served to draw Ryan's attention to the blaster that hung off the squat drunk's shoulder.

  It was a Heckler & Koch G-12 caseless rifle, like the one that had served Ryan well for more years than he cared to remember.

  So they were armed, and they outnumbered him two-to-one. But he was sober and had more weapons.

  Unconsciously his hand traveled to where his panga was sheathed. A tremor of surprise shot through him when he realized it wasn't there. Neither, now that he came to consider it, could he feel the comfortable weight of the SIG-Sauer or Steyr SSG-70.

  So they outnumbered him and he was unarmed. The odds had shifted. Ryan felt a charge go through his body as his adrenaline level rose, and he shifted gears to adjust to the situation.

  The bartender leaned across to him. "You pay for any damage caused if you live, fucker. Just like those scum pay if they live. House rules."

  "Seems fair," Ryan said shortly. At least he could be fairly certain now that it wasn't three-to-one.

  "Hey, I think One-eye wants to fight. Mebbe he can only see one of us 'cause he's only got one eye," the skinny drunk yelled.

  As a witticism it wasn't much, but it was enough to make his companion laugh with such a ferocity that he spit a stream of alcohol across the floor, dribbling the remnants down his chin, belly and crotch.

  It was just the break that Ryan needed to even the score. The interior of the gaudy was lit by a series of naked torches that hung from the walls. One of them was behind the bar, about halfway between Ryan and the drunks.

  The one-eyed man sprang onto the rickety wooden board that served as a bar, his balance delicately poised as the groaning wood swayed beneath his weight. He reached across the head of the startled barkeep and grabbed the torch.

  The two drunks were also baffled by this seemingly pointless move. Their surprise, and the alcohol haze, conspired to delay their reactions for just the necessary fraction of a second. If they had been sober, it would have been a close shave for Ryan.

  As the skinny drunk drew the bayonet and threw it at Ryan, the one-eyed man realized the rusty metal may be badly maintained, but it was a fair bet that the rust was the result of staining by blood. Instinctively shifting the weight in his palm, the skinny drunk had thrown the bayonet so that the lethal point whistled past Ryan's ear. It nicked the skin and drew blood as the one-eyed warrior shifted his balance to pitch the torch seemingly into the middle of the floor.

  The squat drunk was too busy unshouldering the Heckler & Koch to notice where the torch landed. The filthy floor had a line of damp leading a trail of spit alcohol, ending at a midpoint between the two drunks and where Ryan had initially been standing. The torch landed at that midpoint, the raw sugarcane alcohol igniting as the flames touched the dirt.

  A tongue of blue flame shot along the floor and up the leg of the squat drunk. He'd drunk so much of the raw spirit that he didn't at first feel the pain as the flames scorched his skin and ignited on the old stained denim. He swung the rifle around to sight on Ryan, drawing on the trigger before the intense heat and pain penetrated his fogged consciousness, roasting his balls and making him squeal.

  He moved back, trying to step away from the flames, beat at his burning crotch and fire at the one-eyed warrior all at the same time.

  Bullets sprayed into the ceiling, bringing down plaster, wood chippings and dust. The three sluts, who had been watching with a mild disinterest, now screamed and disappeared faster than a rat down a hole.

  The scrawny drunk had his attention distracted, and half turned to his friend. Ryan, however, didn't let anything deter him from his only course of action. He launched himself from the groaning bar and crashed into the thin drunk, taking him down. A battered plastic chair took the brunt of the impact, and Ryan felt rather than heard the crack of the drunk's elbow as it shattered on the metal frame of the chair.

  Bones didn't usually break that easy, and Ryan rode his luck by following up while the drunk was disoriented and distracted by the pain. With the heel of his hand, he forced the man's chin back. A thin, wailing cry of surprise and pain escaped from the drunk's stretched throat. With his free hand Ryan chopped at the man's exposed Adam's apple. He felt cartilage crack beneath his granite hand.

  The drunk choked and coughed blood. He was limp with shock, and it took Ryan just one twist to break the man's neck.

  An angry cry from behind Ryan alerted him to the possibility that the squat drunk had become a danger once more. He rolled to one side to see the drunk coming toward him, holding the handmade knife. His legs were blistered and charred, and the denim appeared burned into his skin, but above the waist he seemed to have escaped damage from the fire. The rifle lay across the room, discarded in drunken anger.

  Good. Ryan stayed calm, despite the adrenaline race of his pulse. The more angry an opponent, the more likely he was to make mistakes.

  Like lunging at a man and committing his strength and balance to one directi
on, when his foe was moving in another.

  With a wild yell the squat drunk threw himself toward Ryan, who moved back across the slumped corpse of the skinny drunk. His muscle-bound opponent wasn't expecting Ryan to head in that direction, so the knife hit empty dirt, sticking in the floor.

  Momentarily confused, the squat drunk was torn between going after Ryan and retrieving his sole weapon. It was a mistake that enabled Ryan to spring to his feet. The squat drunk turned his head to see where his opponent was just in time to receive the toe of Ryan's combat boot at the point of his jaw. The bone shattered like delicate porcelain china, splintering in the drunk's face.

  Ryan stepped back as the drunk hit the floor for the last time, and turned, expecting to see the barkeep ready to argue about the damages.

  Instead he was greeted with a sight that made his senses reel. Harvey, his dead brother, the cause of so much trouble in Front Royal and the reason Ryan had been forced to leave the ville, stood behind the bar, flanked by sec men.

  "Congratulations, Ryan. Now see what you can do against my boys…"

  WALLACE AND MURPHY had left Dean, now disconnected from the comp, and stood over his father, watching the signs on the monitor.

  "He's ready," Wallace said, nodding.

  J.B. HAD THE WORST nightmare of his life come true. The Armorer was defenceless against a horde of stickies. All his weapons jammed. All his grens had refused to go off. His fedora was lost, as was his minisextant.

  But most importantly of all, his spectacles had been knocked off at some point that he couldn't quite recall. So he was fumbling in a blurry mist.

  Dark night, but he never lost his spectacles. It was something he went out of his way to avoid, and he couldn't understand where or how they had gone missing. All he knew was that the Uzi had jammed as soon as he squeezed the trigger, the M-4000 scattergun had no cartridges and his capacious pockets were suddenly, mysteriously empty except for grens that failed to detonate. His knife was stuck in the body of the only stickie he had so far managed to chill. Stuck so hard that he couldn't move it, and couldn't waste time devoting his full attention to it as the horde of muties overran him.