by James Axler
Above the barricade, Jak saw the sky change, turning darker as if the struggling sun had set once more. It made him wonder how long they had been here, in the frozen wilds of His Ink Orchard, beyond all the maps.
“Reason for everything,” Jak said, turning away from the barrier. “Just got find.”
Then he began marching away from the hidden wall that loomed between them and the mine, and Ricky followed. Together the friends made their way across the frozen plain, carefully avoiding the spot where Jak had been attacked by the mouth-in-air.
* * *
THE COLD GOT COLDER. Jak and Ricky pulled their jackets tighter and marched with more determination, having run out of options to stave off the cold. Neither one could say how long they had been walking. They seemed to be trapped in a netherworld of mist and snow, a place where time had lost all meaning, where it had become unhinged like in a dream.
Things moved beyond the misty blanket and occasionally the fog would part and they would glimpse great hulking shadows shifting across the snow.
The snow itself continued to fall in flurries, dropping on them erratically.
Eventually, they came to a settlement. Just three buildings in total, the settlement appeared and disappeared between the swirling curtains of mist, dark lines amid the white. It crouched low to the horizon as if cowering from the falling snow, and Jak approached it warily, the stolen pistol raised and ready in his hand. One shot left, he reminded himself. That’s all.
Without a word, the two companions approached the little cluster of buildings. It was the first sign of habitation they had come across since they had entered this area hours—or was it days?—ago.
Faintly, a road could be seen making its way cross-country toward the buildings, the asphalt old and broken, snow settling on it in powdery white streaks. Once upon a time, Jak realized, this place had been a community, serving either ice fishermen or truckers carting oil and other goods across the bleak backlands of America. Now, it was just three abandoned buildings in a forgotten nightmare, their occupants long since moved on.
On closer inspection, two of the buildings had fallen into terrible disrepair, so much so that it surprised Ricky that they were still able to stand. “They’re just shells,” he said, keeping his voice low.
Jak shot him a look, commanding the teen to silence. He was listening to the sounds here, the creaking of ancient wood in the furious winds that whipped across the plains.
The third building had metal sidings that had survived the quakes and chem storms that had done so much damage to Alaska. Little more than a two-story shack, it looked structurally sound, and Jak approached it warily. “Somewhere to sleep,” he told Ricky as he plodded toward it.
Ricky followed and Jak tried the door. It was unlocked, but it opened only two inches when the albino pushed it. There was something behind that stopped the door opening farther, and Jak stepped back with his blaster raised, calling out for anyone who might be inside.
No answer.
Stepping back to the door, Jak handed Ricky the blaster before placing both hands against the door. Then he shoved, forcing whatever obstruction waited behind the door to move. In a moment, he had the door open and was inside.
It was dark, and Jak took a moment to let his eyes adjust. Ricky handed him back the Colt, bringing the knife up in his other hand.
Jak checked behind the door, saw the rotted remains of a man lying there with a longblaster lying across his withered knees. The man had been backed against the door, presumably to protect himself. All he’d managed to do was die, cold and alone. Judging by the state of decay, the man hadn’t been there that long.
“Dead friend,” Jak told Ricky as he indicated the corpse.
Ricky gulped. “A warning to us both,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Jak moved on, striding past the little alcove and into the main bulk of the building. Inside lay a general store, its contents looted, shelves upturned. All that remained were empty shelves and the faint smell of rust. They had entered from the rear, and they paced through this storage area checking empty cans and boxes, automatically searching for things of value or simply something to eat. It was a scavenger lifestyle, surviving in the Deathlands. With so little infrastructure, survival often came down to rummaging through places like this that still retained stuff from before the nukecaust.
They checked over the store swiftly. There was a gaping hole in the center of the floor, eight feet across and yawning down into the cellar and beyond that into the earth itself. The hole was so wide it took up almost half of the available floor space, and Ricky, who didn’t enjoy Jak’s superior night vision, almost stepped into it before Jak pulled him back.
“Watch first step,” Jak warned, and Ricky nodded frantically as he caught his breath.
Finding nothing of interest in the store besides a few bullet holes in the walls, Jak led the way upstairs through an enclosed staircase that ran behind the store counter. Ricky trotted along behind him on the dilapidated carpet, their footsteps echoing on the wood that had been exposed there.
It was obvious that the second story had once served as living quarters for the store owner and his family. There were two bedrooms, one just a box room, and a lounge that ran almost the length of the building, windows boarded up with the flimsy sides of old packing crates. A figure was on the bedraggled couch; a boy no older than Ricky, missing his left leg and half of his left arm right up to the elbow. He was dead, his flesh as blue as a day-old bruise.
The boy had probably entered with the man, his father perhaps, in search of shelter, like Ricky and Jak. Now they were both dead, frozen to death, their bodies almost perfectly preserved by the chill air. No insects came to feast on them, not here where daytime temperatures never struggled above zero.
While Ricky checked the corpse for weapons and ammunition, Jak scoured the rest of the apartment. There was a bathroom featuring a blocked-up toilet, the blockage iced over, and a small kitchenette. There was also another door that opened into a cupboard where the water heater was stored; thick lines of calcium carbonate buildup ran down it in faded streaks.
Jak joined Ricky back in the living room where the teenager was just finishing checking over the corpse. “Anything?”
Ricky shook his head. “Three bullets, two of them different gauges, and what looks like the blade from an old razor.” He showed Jak his haul, and Jak saw that he had tossed aside a few other items that had been in the corpse’s pockets—colored beads, a patterned kerchief and a little figurine of a laughing man carved from wood.
Jak nodded grimly. Nothing of use.
“Rest here,” Jak said. “Stay alert, one on, one off.”
Ricky agreed, and before long he had wrapped himself in the coat of the boy corpse—after all, he figured it wasn’t much use to him anymore—while Jak took the first watch.
* * *
JAK WOKE UP, sensing the movement in his sleep. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep. He had swapped shifts with Ricky at the ascribed time, difficult to judge since neither of their wrist chrons seemed to be operating, as if they were caught in a strong magnetic field. Still, Jak had guessed when he’d reached the four-hour mark of his shift and went to rouse Ricky, handing the kid his blaster along with the automatic rifle he had procured from the dead man downstairs by the door.
The longblaster was a homemade weapon—with some artistic flourish, no less—on the standard AK-47 design. Jak had checked its magazine, ascertaining that there were at least two dozen rounds still in the blaster, and tried the safety a few times while Ricky slept upstairs. That was hours ago.
Now he awakened to find the building creaking. Outside, a fierce north wind was caroming against the shack like a child throwing a tantrum, tossing snowflakes all about in its fury. That could make an old property like this creak, Jak knew, but he sensed it was something else. A quake maybe? Alaska had suffered earthquakes before now, he recalled.
But no, he felt sure it was something else,
something alive.
Jak was sitting in the chair he had fallen asleep in. He dropped the thin cover from his chest, immediately feeling the punishing cold of the apartment, the frigid wind rattling through broken and boarded windows.
In darkness, he scanned the room. The dead boy remained on the couch; nothing looking amiss.
Where was Ricky? The thought came to Jak immediately, fear prodding at the back of his mind. The kid should be on watch, but he wasn’t in the room.
Another room then, or downstairs?
As he thought it, Jak felt the vibration run through the building again, making the boards in the windows shake. He was on his feet now, prowling toward the open doorway. He checked the other rooms from the corridor—bedrooms, bathroom, kitchenette—before making his way to the narrow staircase. The staircase had been boxed in on both sides and it ran up through the building at a steep angle, noticeably steeper than most old buildings that Jak had been in.
The building shook again as Jak took the stairs, hurrying down them two at a time, reaching the closed door at the bottom in record time. Ricky’s voice called from behind the door, blabbing a prayer or something very much like it.
Jak pushed the door open, saw the thing looming in the darkness as it emerged from the hole in the basement floor. It was huge, its bulk taking up almost half of the store’s area as it smashed up through the hole, knocking shelving units aside. It was covered in gray fur, with a great square head, two pointing ears protruding above it, two mighty limbs ripping aside the rotted floorboards as it pulled itself out of the basement.
Jak smelled the creature’s breath as it turned to face him, the stench of fish exuding from its open mouth where an array of impressive, foot-long teeth glimmered in the darkness. Sighting Jak, the creature began to charge.
Chapter Sixteen
The creature charged across the confined space of the dilapidated store, knocking aside shelves and clutter in its hurry to reach its prey. The obstacles slowed it just enough, giving Jak a fraction of a second to think and respond. He turned back, springing into the stairwell and slamming the door closed. A moment later he heard a mighty crash and the door shook behind him as the beast struck against it.
He had seen it only for a moment in the darkened store but he recognized the creature as some kind of mutie polar bear, teeth extended into mighty points designed to rend flesh from living prey. He had seen something similar before, but at a distance. It had to have sniffed out him and Ricky here in the general store, the same way it had most likely found the man and his boy, tearing the boy’s limbs from his living body as he struggled to get away.
One thought flashed through Jak’s mind then: Ricky.
The resourceful teenager had been left on watch while Jak slept and he had heard the lad’s voice coming from behind the door in the storefront—but he hadn’t had time to locate him out there in the dark.
Jak cursed as the door shook again under the attack of the mutie polar bear. What the fuck was he supposed to do now?
* * *
IN THE STORE, Ricky had hidden within the arch of two collapsed shelving units as soon as he saw the creature emerging from the ground. The shelves acted like an A-frame, leaving a small area with just enough room for his frame. Had he been any larger, blessed with the shoulders of Ryan Cawdor say, then he would never have made it into this enclosed space in time. What a fool he’d been to come down here and check on the noise he’d heard. Why hadn’t he just awakened Jak? Was it pride?
He watched from his hiding place as the polar bear pawed at the stout door where Jak had disappeared. The creature was snuffling as it searched for a way in, its breath hanging there in great clouds of mist as it stalked before the closed door.
Ricky had two blasters with him, the stolen revolver and the knockoff AK-47. Maybe he could shoot the wretched creature, either chill it or just scare it away with a faceful of lead. There was just one problem with that—he had tried using the AK as the thing emerged, muttering a prayer to his sainted aunts, only to find the bastard mechanism had jammed, locked in place by the freezing temperature.
He peered at the longblaster in the darkness of the store, struggling to make out the details. He had been brought up around weaponry, his Tío Benito had been his ville’s armorer and had shown him how to field-strip and rebuild a blaster, making it run smoother and better in the process. Ricky glared angrily at the autorifle in the gloom. If he had to he would strip this thing down to get it working again, if only he could be sure he would have time.
The polar bear was still prowling around the doorway, snuffling at the gap underneath and clawing at the wood there. Over the sounds of the creature’s angry growl, Ricky heard Jak’s booted feet running back up the wooden stairs and a moment later the floorboards creaked directly above him. Without the obvious prey nearby the creature might leave; it was a desperate hope, but Ricky was running low on options.
The mutie polar bear seemed to sense Jak’s disappearance, too. It sniffed at the heavy door again then backed away, its broad head swinging left and right as it scented the air.
In the darkness, Ricky worked his thumb into a groove along the longblaster’s casing. There had to be something he could do. If only he could think.
The polar bear stalked through the room, sniffing at the air as it hunted for prey. Ricky didn’t know much about polar bears—he figured that maybe he and Jak had entered its hunting ground and it had smelled them out as they crossed the plains, leaving some trail of scent that had awakened the creature from its resting place under the snow.
Midway through the shelves, the creature stopped and turned to face Ricky’s hiding place, its nose twitching. The kid watched in the darkness as the creature’s black lips pulled back to reveal those hideous knifelike teeth, each one as long as his forearm.
I’m invisible, Ricky thought, not daring to move. Just ignore me.
The polar bear had other ideas. With a growl like a battle cry, it began to charge at the fallen shelves where Ricky hid, straining floorboards creaking beneath its weight.
Ricky moved at the very last instant, diving out from cover as the beast slammed against the propped shelves, smashing them to smithereens. Legs pumping, he ran across the store, the useless AK-47 in one hand, the pistol in the other.
Ricky propelled himself across the shop counter as the polar bear turned to face him, batting debris aside. Sweet Maria but that thing could move, Ricky thought as the creature charged across the room.
Ricky was behind the counter by then, scrambling across the debris-strewed floor to where the closed door to the stairwell was located. The beast crashed over the counter, looming behind Ricky with the pungent odor of rotting fish. The door was ahead, still closed. He wouldn’t make it, Ricky realized.
He turned then as the polar bear lunged at him. One mighty paw swished through the air, claws extended. Ricky ducked and the claws raked across the wooden panelling at the rear of the counter with a great screech of nails on a blackboard.
Ricky’s heart was pounding in his chest like a jackhammer, a mighty buh-boom, buh-boom against the wall of his rib cage. The polar bear moved like a storm come to life, batting everything aside as it reached for its prey. Ricky brought the useless AK-47 around and used it like a staff, jabbing the monster in the face with its butt. The creature’s jaws clamped down around the rifle, snapping it in two.
Ricky almost fell backward as the creature let go of the longblaster, stumbling against the counter with a gasp of pain. The polar bear’s tongue worked the metal from its mouth, spitting it to the floor in a long bead of drool.
Ricky brought up the weapon again, now almost a foot shorter than it had been seconds ago. The beast was six feet away, that shimmering loop of drool hanging from its lip.
* * *
UPSTAIRS, JAK HAD gone back to the small cupboard and worked free a metal strut from the rotted water tank. Though discolored with calcium carbonate buildup, the metal seemed solid enough. Jak had been making
his own knives for years now. There wasn’t time to fashion anything clever up here while that mutie ran riot below, but Jak was satisfied that the hunk of metal would do for the purpose he had in mind.
Moving swiftly through the room, Jak reached for the wooden boards that had been placed across the windows, testing for the weakest before pulling it from its housing. The boards had been put up with little craftsmanship; it wasn’t difficult to break them away.
Within ninety seconds he had two boards, enough to expose the busted window and to climb through it. The polar bear had burrowed through the floor of the building, but it didn’t have an easy way out again. If Jak could keep moving, and get Ricky out of there in the process, then maybe they would survive this encounter.
Jak shimmied through the gap in the exposed window, brushing aside the last few shards of glass that clung to the broken frame. Then he was outside on a lintel, snow billowing about him on the icy wind. He used the lintel as a stepping stone, dropping to the ground with an agile leap.
* * *
INSIDE THE ABANDONED store, Ricky was forced into the corner as the hulking polar bear prowled toward him. There was no way he could get to the back of the store and through the door there.
As the polar bear loomed over him, its mouth wide in victorious roar, Ricky tossed the broken remains of the AK-47 at it, aiming right between those open jaws. The longblaster flew through the air before striking the beast between the teeth. Automatically, the polar bear clamped down with its fearsome jaws, snapping up the remains of the weapon.
Ricky brought up his remaining weapon then, the stolen pistol that Jak had snagged from the sec man in the mine. In the space of a heartbeat he aimed and fired, sending the one remaining bullet from the Colt’s chamber into the polar bear’s mouth.
The shot was true and the bullet struck the smashed remains of the longblaster, igniting the propellant in a white-hot burst of illumination.
