by James Axler
The mutie had two seemingly ordinary arms that ended in crooked fingers. The right hand gripped a gnarled club of wood, with several pieces of iron hammered into it. Beneath the normal arms Ryan saw that the mutie had several sets of paddlelike, residual arms, becoming progressively smaller.
During his travels in the Deathlands, Ryan had seen some appalling cases of genetic mutation, resulting initially from the nuking of 2001. But never anything quite as gross as this.
For several moments of stopped time, Ryan and the mutie looked at each other. In those steady, beating seconds, Ryan looked past it, running his eye over the remainder of the group, which numbered about twenty. The moon flickered and died, but Ryan had seen enough to know that whatever stood on the porch was a prince among its peers. Some of the others were unbelievably monstrous in their mutations. And all carried some sort of rudimentary weapon.
"Goodbye," Ryan said, slamming the door, immediately yelling out a warning to the others. "Muties! Up and at 'em! There's muties!"
The colored glass in the top half of the door imploded, splinters of crimson, deep blue, yellow and sea-green scattering over the hall floor. The tip of the great club appeared in the hole for a moment, disappeared, then came crashing down a second time, knocking the door clear off its frail old hinges. The mutie stood there, stooping to enter the house. Its face was in deep shadow.
The door to the music room swung open and Ryan saw J.B.'s face in the gap, peering out behind the stubby barrel of his mini-Uzi.
"Dark night!" he exclaimed, not really sounding that surprised.
"Let's get the fuck out of here," Ryan called, spinning around and putting a triple burst through the middle of where he assumed the mutie's heart might be. The giant staggered back onto the porch, giving a roar of pain and rage, tearing away half the frame of the door as it went. But it didn't fall.
A second burst from the G-12 put it down, the club dropping with a crash. Ryan could hear a dreadful sound from outside, a confused, wordless shriek that mixed anger and hatred.
"Through here and out the back door," the Armorer said.
Ryan glanced over his shoulder, but none of the muties had yet appeared. He darted into the music room, seeing that the fire had sunk low. The others were up and ready, blasters in hands.
"Bad?" Krysty asked.
He shook his head as Jak and Donfil bolted the heavy door behind him. "Muties like you've never seen," he panted. "Real… But I figure they don't have the brains of a self-heat can between them. Mebbe best we outrun them. No point wasting good lead."
Lori appeared from the far door, at the bottom of the rear stairs. "They're out there, through the old kitchens. Five or six. No blasters. Axes and some getting knifes."
"Knives," Doc corrected automatically.
"More than that out front. Jak, pile all the wood we've got on the fire and set the floor burning. Place'll go like a torched gas wag. Give the muties something to think about."
While the boy scampered to carry out the orders, Ryan cautiously led the other five into the rear hall. They could hear a rhythmic drumming and pounding on the music room door, as the muties closed in on their prey.
A face appeared from the blackness, pressed against the glass of a small window opening off the kitchen area. It took a second to see that the skull was totally bald, covered with what looked like small pinkish-white worms or maggots.
Krysty snapped off a shot from her Heckler & Koch silvered P7A-13. The 9 mm round smashed the glass, sending the mutie out of sight in a spray of blood that was almost black in the moonlight as it splattered over the white walls.
"Two down," Krysty said, calmly.
Jak joined them, silhouetted in the doorway against the dazzling light. "Fire burn all. Floor and walls all burn. House gone real soon, I guess."
"You got much ammo, Ryan?" J.B. asked, checking his own pockets.
"Not that much. Forty-four in the G-12 and a few singles."
"I got more. Best I go first and clear the path. You figure these sons of bitches are slow on their feet?"
"From what I've seen, yeah, they are. Hey, that fire's going to catch us if we don't make a move now."
There was a gust of raw heat that scorched at the seven companions, huddled at the foot of the dark, spiraling staircase. For a moment Ryan considered trying to lure the muties into what would be an inferno in a handful of minutes, but the rule was always to get out when you could.
He motioned for the Armorer to go first. "I'll come last. Anyone falls, we stand and fight for time to get them up and away. Head out as far as you can. I'll hold off any pursuit. Right? Then let's do it, friends!"
The next sixty seconds were a blur of violence, noise and death.
There were seven of the creatures. One was probably female, as it was naked to the waist and had a cluster of dangling breasts across its chest. Another had arms so long that they scraped on the frost-rimed grass. A raking burst from the Uzi sent half of them spinning away in a tangle of normal and residual limbs. There was a harsh crying, choked with blood, as J.B. let loose at them, firing from the hip. The others were close behind him, picking their targets. But it was damnably difficult to shoot on the run, and only one more of the inbred monsters was hit.
Ryan hesitated a second, looking back into the burning room. Tongues of flame leaped eagerly at the old floorboards, climbing the paneled walls. Already a chunk of the ceiling was blazing. Through the other door Ryan glimpsed something, very low, near the floor, something pale and sluglike that moved on its belly in rippling movements. He aimed the G-12, then changed his mind, powering after the others into the cold night air.
The garden was filled with chaos. He hurdled a corpse and dodged a hissing blow from an enormous, scythelike blade. Another of the muties, who was gut shot, reached out and tried to grab Ryan as he darted by, but the man was too quick, dodging sideways and making for a break in the bushes where the others waited for him.
"We could chill them all," J.B. said, pointing to the rear of the house. It looked like most of the muties were there, watching them, fifty paces away, ignoring their own dead and wounded.
Even while the two sides stared at one another there was a great whooshing sound and a bursting sphere of flames shot out through the side of the mansion.
It wreathed around the heads of the muties, sending them into a gurgling, screeching, huddled group, several of them actually falling to the dirt.
"Time to move," Ryan said. "I don't figure we'll have any more trouble from them."
Nothing followed them as they circled back around the blazing house. Flames soared a hundred feet in the air, sending a fountain of golden sparks ten times as high. By the time they reached the blacktop that would take them away from Consequence, there was already the first gleaming of the false dawn showing low in the eastern sky.
JUST AS THE SMOKE had drawn them from their burrows among the trees, so the ferocity of the fire sent them crawling and stumbling back. Houses were bad. They should never have gone near them. That had been a bad thing to do.
At least some of them would have fresh meat for a few days.
The ashes of the old house smoldered quietly for three days and then died away. If anything ever walked there again, it walked alone.
Chapter Eleven
FORTUNATELY DOC TANNER'S sometimes muddled memory was functioning well. He could recall the details of the sketch map that he'd seen in the leaflet advertising a new restaurant opening, back in Consequence.
"Inland a half mile or so. Then you reach a road… Old County Turnpike, I think. Head west and loop back again toward the coast. It looked as though it were a more sizeable community, set in a valley. Harbor. Said something there about how Claggartville was one of the centers of the New England whaling industry. That would be around… Goodness me! Around two hundred and fifty years ago. So many, many years, tears, fears and jeers, and tears and tears."
Lori stepped forward and put her arm around his shoulders, smiling up at him, lifting a finger
and touching the old man on the lips, hushing the flow of words.
"I could use a shave," Ryan said, fingering the stubble that was beginning to thicken on his chin. J.B. never seemed to grow much of a beard on his pale skin. Jak sprouted an odd, long, embarrassing snowy hair from his chin. Ryan knew it was rare for an Indian to grow any sort of beard. Doc, on the other hand, was already showing the beginnings of a fine set of grizzled whiskers.
"I could use some food, lover," Krysty replied, "and my hair needs trimming."
The smile was a shared private joke. Because of the mutie genes that dwelt within Krysty Wroth, she possessed certain oddities. And the long mane of dazzling red hair, with a strange life of its own, was one of them. Cutting it at all was a difficult and often painful process for the girl. But she'd taught Ryan the best way of doing it, which involved her drinking plenty of alcohol or sniffing some lines of jolt. Anything to numb the sentience of her fiery locks.
"That'll have to wait. The haircutting, I mean. But my belly's been moaning since last night that it was feeling left out of things. Maybe there'll be something for us all in Claggartville. If we ever find it."
The rising sun didn't make their journey any easier. The road that Doc had seen on the old map didn't exist anymore. There'd been some kind of seismic shift, probably prompted by the deathly power of the hundreds of missiles that had ravaged the seaboard. But Doc was certain that Claggartville had been a ville on the coast, so they tried to turn their way southwest, back toward the taste of the ocean.
The woods grew thickly, making progress difficult. Just before noon, Krysty held up her hand.
"What is it, lover?" Ryan asked.
"Smoke. Wood fire. And meat cooking." She checked the direction of the light breeze. "Ahead a half mile or so."
"Spread out," Ryan called. "Forest like this we could walk right past a dozen ambushers. Around ten paces apart and keep your eyes open."
"And if we see your grandmother, lover, we'll make sure she knows how to suck eggs," Krysty teased.
"Venison," Donfil said quietly, when they'd gone a hundred paces or so. "If they don't take it off the fire real soon it'll be blacker than the heart of a pony soldier."
By now they could all catch the smell of meat roasting over a wood fire. Jak glimpsed smoke curling up among the trees, not far ahead of them.
And they could hear the noise of singing, sounding like two voices. One was thin and piping, the other an echoing bass.
"Can't make out the words," Ryan said. "Anyone else?"
None of them could pick out any recognizable words in the chanting.
From the location of the smoke, Ryan figured they were only fifty paces or so from the fire and the singers. He went straight ahead while J.B. looped left and Jak went right. The others stayed with Ryan.
The undergrowth was thick, but the soft earth and the compressed fallen leaves made for silent stalking. He dropped to a crouch when he spotted crackling flames, and two fur-clad figures squatting on the earth by the fire. Both of them had their backs turned to the approaching men and women.
Krysty tugged at Ryan's sleeve. When he turned to look at her she mimed notching an arrow and drawing a longbow, pointing ahead of them to the singing duo. Ryan couldn't see the weapons, but he trusted Krysty's keen sight.
Placing each foot cautiously in front of the other as if he were walking on eggshells, Ryan closed in, Heckler & Koch at the ready, eyes raking the surrounding woods for the possibility of a trap.
"Chill them," Lori whispered, her breath ruffling the short hairs inside Ryan's ears, making him start.
"Blood-drinker bitch," he whispered back.
"Safe," she retorted.
It was true. But that still wasn't quite enough of a reason to send a couple of strangers off to buy the farm. Not when they might be able to help out by telling where this elusive settlement of Claggartville could be found.
He moved to the edge of the clearing, waiting until he'd located Jak, almost invisible in his camouflage jacket, and J.B. Dix, both covering the singers. The smell of burning meat was much stronger. A light brown jug was being passed frequently between the two men. Ryan found himself beginning to salivate.
"Move and you're dead!"
The singing continued, both the huddled figures waving their short arms from side to side. Ryan couldn't believe that they hadn't heard him. But they both had dark fur caps on, with long flaps over their ears that tied under their chins, and they both looked and sounded drunker than skunks.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Ryan stepped out from cover and poked the barrel of the caseless rifle into the back of the nearer man, who leaped to his feet so fast that he nearly knocked Ryan over. He vaulted the fire, catching his foot on the spit that held the blackened haunch of venison, sending it spinning. He began to scream in the same puny little voice that Ryan had heard singing, moments earlier.
The other men also had lightning reactions, a knife springing from sheath to fist, cutting back so fast that he nearly slashed Ryan across the thigh.
"Hold it, you stupe!" Ryan bellowed as he took a couple of steps away, keeping both strangers covered. Jak and J.B. appeared like lethal phantoms from the other side of the clearing, the boy with his satin-finish cannon and the Armorer with his trusty Uzi.
"Stand still and keep your hands up. Drop that blade!"
Now that they turned to look at Ryan, he saw that both the men had rounded, brutish faces, with reddish eyes sunk in layers of weathered flesh. They had thin lips and short necks. Under their furs, both of them looked stocky and muscular. As far as he could see, neither was a mutie.
The one with the knife glanced sideways at his comrade, muttering something in his rumbling, deep voice. The other fluted something back and the knife thudded into the turf, a couple of inches from the toes of Ryan's boots.
"Don't push it, friend," he growled, lifting the muzzle of the G-12 toward the man's face.
"We don't want to hurt you," J.B. told them. "Just a little food and some directions. Give us that and you can go free."
There was no reaction from either man.
"They dumbies?" Jak asked.
"They were sanging," Lori observed.
"Perhaps they do not speak your tongue," Donfil suggested, staring intently at their two prisoners. "It is an arrogance to think every man you meet will speak your language. You understand me, One Eye Chills? Do you?"
Ryan nodded. "Sure, Man Whose Eyes See More. I know what you mean."
"Do you speak English?" Krysty asked, standing at Ryan's side.
The slitted eyes turned to her, but the faces showed no trace of emotion.
"Looks like they don't."
"Fireblast! If they can't help us, we'd better chill them. Safest."
Doc pushed past him. "Really, my dear Ryan, there are times that your chilling desire for chilling makes me concerned for your immortal soul. There are times that there could be alternative solutions to 'Chill him,' if you look for them."
"Such as?"
Doc stepped closer to the man who'd thrown the knife. As he did so the blank face lightened and he again mumbled something to his companion, who clearly nodded his agreement.
"Seems like they know you, Doc," J.B. said amusedly.
"Claggartville," the old man said very slowly and clearly. "Where is Claggartville?"
The one who had knocked over the venison opened his eyes a millimeter wider. Though his accent was barbaric, there was no doubt at all that he repeated the name. "Claggartville."
Doc shrugged his shoulders, miming someone who was lost, shading his eyes with his hand, looking around and saying the name of the ville in a puzzled tone of voice.
"Great performance, Doc," Ryan said.
"Claggartville," said the man with the high voice. He then tried a string of guttural words. Seeing that this failed, he relied then on pointing to the west, using his hand to indicate they should then curve toward the south.
"What we figured," Jak said dismissiv
ely.
"How about telling them we want to steal all their food and they can go," Ryan suggested.
"I'll give it a try. I was always rather a stunner when it came to playing charades at the Yuletide parties, back when I was… when the world was young," he finished, biting his lip. "I'll try, Ryan."
He stooped with cracking knee joints and picked a few pieces off the piece of meat, wiping his mouth in a vivid pantomime of appreciation. Then he took the two men, one by each arm, and led them to the edge of the clearing, to the east. He gently pushed them toward the forest.
Both stubbornly resisted his efforts to get them to leave the clearing. One pointed to his knife, the other to the pair of horn longbows that leaned against a tree.
Ryan shook his head angrily, gesturing at them with the rifle. "Tell them to get out of it, Doc."
"I don't speak their tongue. It sounds like some debased form of German or Polish. I don't know. They were probably a small community that was cut off by the bombing and kept elements of their mother tongue. Immigrants."
"Fuck off!" Jak shouted, cocking his Magnum and ramming the end of the barrel under the chin of the nearer man. The tip of the forward sight cut into the skin, leaving a tiny, perfect bead of bright crimson blood on the tanned skin.
The hand rose and brushed away the gaping muzzle of the massive handblaster, as if it were a mildly troublesome insect. J.B. laughed out loud. "Sure terrified him there, boy."
Lori took the next try, pulling the fur-covered men to the farther edge of the small clearing, coughing as she passed through the smoke of their cooking fire. She rubbed her stomach and mimed hunger, smiling at the venison, which was rapidly cooling on the grass. Then she pushed the men from her, with a wave and a sad smile.
One of them nodded, mouth breaking into a toothless grin, which made Ryan wonder in passing how he would have eaten the roasted meat. But the man was pointing again, this time to the earthenware crock of liquor.
"Yes?" Lori asked. Getting Ryan's smile of agreement, the tall blonde ran across, silver spurs tinkling, and picked up the jar, handing it to the primitive outlander.
