by Jon Land
His eyes fell on Scarlett when he was halfway to it. The fact that the smaller, red loader had not joined its two larger brethren seemed to indicate that Leeds did not control her. And if Leeds didn’t, well …
The Ferryman lunged into Scarlett’s cab as the larger loaders gained ground fast. This smaller loader had an entirely different front assembly: pronged, yes, but with oscillating joints like elbows that could twist and bend in humanlike articulation.
Kimberlain jammed a small device that looked like a rounded hairbrush against the ignition. He pressed a button on the device’s back that sent electrical signals designed to “fool” any machine’s starter system.
“Come on, baby! Come on!” the Ferryman shouted as he twisted his universal starter to find the proper charge.
Scarlett roared to life, as one of the black loaders pulled ahead of the other and bore down on the smaller machine. Its bright lights poured into the cab. Kimberlain’s hands located the joysticks that controlled Scarlett’s arms, as he gassed the accelerator and shoved the stick forward.
Scarlett lunged at her larger enemy and Kimberlain had just enough time before impact to twist the front assembly perpendicular to the ground. As the black loader closed, he braked hard and applied gas at the same time. The result was to force Scarlett into a fishtail that took her from her bigger cousin’s path. At the same time, Kimberlain worked the joystick to bring her cocked front assembly down hard to the left.
It clipped the big loader in the front quarter panel just beyond the left side prong. Impact threw the bigger loader wildly off course, slamming straight for a neatly stacked pile of car wrecks that tumbled down upon it as it plowed through.
Kimberlain swung round in time to see the second loader almost upon him. This time he turned Scarlett to face it head on. As the enemy charged in, Kimberlain pulled Scarlett’s oscillating assembly up toward his cab, bending its steel arms inward at the joint. He snapped it out and down at the last, relying on moments and impetus. He was not disappointed. Impact on the larger machine forced the loader’s prongs to their lowest point at near ground level. Its bulk slowed in response time considerably, and the black monster was helpless when Kimberlain drove Scarlett forward and slammed her front assembly into the larger machine full throttle.
The loader’s front steel section buckled and bent. Smoke poured from its grill. Kimberlain moved to strike at it again, but it drove forward. He tried to parry its ascending prongs, but they soared up and over him. They lashed downward against Scarlett’s oscillating assembly and pinned it before the Ferryman could pull away. Steel ground against steel with a horrible shriek. Kimberlain tried to pull back, but it was no use. The best he could manage was a stalemate as the two iron monsters struggled for position, spinning, with dirt and scrap yard debris hurled behind their tires.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kimberlain saw the other loader burst through a pile of flattened cars, climbing atop the last few stubborn ones en route to the battle. If the loader he was hooked up with now could merely maintain the stalemate, Scarlett would be finished.
The freed loader was heading straight his way, certain to try to sandwich him between it and the one he was battling. The things fought like great beasts from a prehistoric era of steel. Their engines snorted and huffed, with clawlike prongs whistling against each other.
The second loader had angled itself for a charge against Scarlett’s rear. Kimberlain could sense it coming and needed only brief glimpses to adjust his timing. When only ten yards remained between them, he spun Scarlett’s wheel and floored the accelerator. The resulting momentum carried Scarlett around the loader she was locked against, switching their positions too late for the second loader to stop its charge. It rammed its prongs through its twin’s engine and cab compartment. The dying loader bled smoke and oil. Flames sprang up from its already-mangled hood top.
With Scarlett freed, Kimberlain drew her backward. Although her arms were locked in place, the delicate controls stripped by the battle, Kimberlain didn’t hesitate. The second black loader had just extricated itself from its twin’s smoking carcass when Scarlett smashed into it at full speed. The loader was driven sideways and back against the impetus of its own churning wheels. The impact threw Kimberlain forward, but he held fast to the controls. The final loader tried futilely to right itself and had almost succeeded when Scarlett slammed its back side into the car-crushing apparatus and held it there. Almost instantly, the top section of the crusher began its descent.
The enclosed cab section of the black loader compressed on impact. Glass shattered and flew outward. The loader’s heavy steel back resisted briefly, forcing the crusher to rev higher, and then gave up the fight. Two of the huge tires exploded under the pressure and blew out all the glass in Scarlett’s cab. Kimberlain managed to duck low just in time, and when he looked up, the crusher was rising in its slot to reveal the flattened black loader.
He climbed down from Scarlett’s cab and walked off cautiously. The scrap yard seemed endless, as he slid by the still-smoking corpse of the other loader and crossed through the rest of the auto yard.
The section dominated by tall stacks of rusted oil drums was darker and more malevolent, but he welcomed the silence. He decided to take a more roundabout route to the appliance graveyard in order to stay hidden. By lingering in the open he had already helped Leeds twice, and Kimberlain didn’t want to make it three times. There was just enough room for loading equipment to operate between the neatly stacked rows of oil drums. The setup provided him with cover, as well as views toward the scrap yard’s main artery.
Thump … thump … thump …
The sound of what might have been heavy footsteps rose in the night.
Thump … thump … thump …
It came again, louder and more pronounced. Something was coming, something that made no effort to disguise its approach.
The Ferryman cut back down one of the aisles, where towers of rusted brown keg drums rose toward the sky. He reached an intersecting row and backed into it for cover.
Thump … thump … thump …
Louder still. Whatever made the sound was coming up on his aisle from the yard’s primary area. Kimberlain peered out down the aisle. A huge dark shadow loomed directly ahead of him. Clanking and clamoring, one of the two-tonners pounded its way across the dirt. A thousand pounds of orange steel carved in the outline of a man.
Though it featured the extremities and torso of a man, its head was a simple cage designed to protect the operator. When it walked, flexing at the knee joint like a man, its arms did not move or sway. Those same arms could be manipulated in virtually any direction and had been fitted with delicate yet powerful pincers to serve as hands.
The two-tonner passed out of sight toward the next row, and the Ferryman made sure of his breath before ducking that way toward it. When he eased around the cover of the drums to peer out again, he found the thing standing straight and still directly before him. Kimberlain started to duck back behind cover, but not before he saw the two-tonner’s solid steel extremities coming up.
My God …
It had known he was there. Leeds, wherever he was, must have had hidden cameras placed all through the scrap yard. Kimberlain sensed what the two-tonner was going to do and burst into a dash to avoid it. He stumbled on the poorly packed, oil-rich gravel of the yard, just as the thing’s powerful arms smashed against the closest pile of drums. Instantly, the steel kegs began to crumble, spreading not just down a single row, but also out in the direction Kimberlain was fleeing. He felt the drums thundering down in heap after clanging heap. It was like running from fire, the noise burning his ears.
Crack!
Kimberlain realized the columns he was rushing for were now tumbling in a second avalanche. The walls of loosed steel seemed to be closing in on him like tidal waves sprung by a hurricane. He bolted down the center of the yard with the drums tumbling in his wake, as if his sprint were pulling them down behind him.
He fi
nally got beyond the avalanche, but the two-tonner appeared from behind a newly formed mound of kegs directly in front of him. He could read the name Moe painted on its midsection. It lashed at him with a heavy steel arm, and Kimberlain ducked to avoid it, never breaking stride. The things were huge and capable of incredible lifting strength, but were generally slow and lumbering. A second two-tonner labeled Larry moved sideways to block his path. Larry’s arms snapped up to right angles, and its pincer apparatus turned. The machine seemed to be challenging him. Moe’s approach from the rear ruled out retreat that way, so the Ferryman chose the next best alternative. He leapt up onto a heap of drums the two-tonners had spilled over. The machines spun his way, but the Ferryman was already lunging from drum to drum, toward the appliance graveyard and escape.
As he reached the appliance graveyard, far outdistancing the pursuing two-tonners, he froze. Before him the tall neat columns of scrapped appliances had been tumbled into heaps blocking his way in all directions. The two-tonners must have done all this during his battle with the loaders back in the auto yard. Leeds had been taking no chances, and now Kimberlain was trapped.
Where was Curly?
He had barely formed that thought when a grating sound made him duck and twist. He avoided the brunt of Curly’s blow, but it nonetheless pitched him airborne and he slammed into a mound of gutted stoves. He slid sideways as Curly advanced toward him, eating up ground in huge gulps.
With no other path available, Kimberlain lunged onto the heaps of splintered appliances. He began leaping from one to another in a random path back toward the hole he had cut in the fence.
Curly plowed a more direct path, shoveling the piles of appliances effortlessly aside. A glance to his rear showed Kimberlain that the two-tonner had slowed long enough to grasp an ancient stove and lift it upward. It was airborne in the next instant. The Ferryman threw himself down on a mangled drier and the stove sailed over his head. The Ferryman clawed his way back to his feet and charged on until a refrigerator tilted under his weight. He went down hard and felt his foot catch between a pair of washing machines. Curly moved toward him at its top clip, the mounds of scrap receding in its path. It climbed atop the appliances nearest him and grasped what looked like half a refrigerator door in its pincers. The door came overhead and whistled down at Kimberlain, just as he yanked his foot free and backpedaled desperately. The door smashed brutally down on the spot he had just vacated. Curly drew it back for another try.
The Ferryman was on his feet again, still moving backward when the door swished by, inches from his face. Curly climbed atop the debris and followed him across the endless heap, pulling back for another blow as the trailing pair of two-tonners furrowed through the scrap at converging angles. Kimberlain assessed the situation between blinks and chose the only response available to him.
He scaled a higher peak of appliances and leapt down on Curly. The two-tonner spun wildly, like a bronco trying to throw its rider, but Kimberlain found enough purchase on its steel hull to hold on. He was not in a position to wedge his arms and legs into the slots provided. He could, however, reach some of the controls, including the one that was responsible for the thing’s right arm. The one still holding the refrigerator door.
Kimberlain pressed the PINCER RELEASE button while he manipulated the arm back and then in a quick cut sideways. The refrigerator door whirled outward like a frisbee, straight into the line of Moe’s approach. The Ferryman heard the thud of impact, but only glimpsed Moe going down as Curly continued to spin in an attempt to shed him.
With Larry still advancing, Kimberlain at last found the main control panel. He strained to reach the ON/OFF button, but Curly’s twisting kept him from depressing it. He wrapped his dangling feet tight around the two-tonner’s extremities and tried to better his angle for the switch. At last he found it and pressed.
Nothing happened. Curly kept fighting, slamming him backward into a mound of washers and driers. Kimberlain reached out to cushion the impact with his arm and shredded more of his flesh on a sharp piece of a washer’s exposed frame. He managed to close his fingers around the steel and tear it free while Curly spun and slammed him into a pile of refrigerators.
Once again, impact knocked the wind out of Kimberlain. But he maintained his grasp of the yard-long steel shard. The two-tonner was trying to reach back for him with its pincers, and he seized the opening provided to jam the pointed end of his shard into the control box. Sparks flew. He could smell smoke and hear a popping sound.
Curly twitched wildly but still tried for him with its pincers.
Kimberlain jammed the shard in deeper and wrenched it up and down again. There was a fizzling, staticky sound. Curly stopped in the midst of reaching for him and keeled over backward. The Ferryman tried to twist to prevent being crushed under its weight. In the end, though, the best he could manage was to avoid the major brunt of impact. The two-tonner’s carcass came down on his legs, pinning his lower body beneath it, leaving him for Larry.
The last of the two-tonners was almost upon him. It shoved a huge section of rusted debris from its path and continued to advance. Kimberlain fought to squeeze himself out, and when this failed tried to lift Curly’s frame from him. It was no use. The two-tonner weighed too much even to budge from this angle. Larry was coming. If Kimberlain was going to mount yet another struggle, it would have to be from down here.
With what, though?
No weapon was within his reach. He had only his hands to use from an inferior position against a machine that could snap his spine with a single squeeze of its pincers. He saw it looming over him, pincers turning and snapping together like an alligator’s jaws. He kicked desperately to free his legs from beneath Curly but succeeded only in pinning himself deeper. Larry stood over him and hesitated, as if it could see he was finished and wanted to savor the victory—as if it were seeing with Leeds’s eyes. At last, one of its massive arm extensions raised upward and started whistling down.
Kimberlain might have closed his eyes if something long and black hadn’t whirled before him. There was a metallic clang, and the two-tonner’s hydraulic arm was knocked upward again. The Ferryman turned to see the impossible in the form of a monstrous bare-chested shape lunging forward between him and the two-tonner.
Winston Peet!
Peet had never looked so big to him, even when measured against the huge shape of Larry. The giant swirled a massive square steel beam around again, smashing the two-tonner’s cage assembly atop its torso. The thing turned his way then, and Peet squared to face it, weapon back level with his midsection.
The two-tonner advanced on him, its hydraulic legs bending at the center with each step over the uneven terrain of scrap. From his angle, the thing looked to Kimberlain like an animated monster from a science fiction film. Peet was big, but the two-tonner towered over him by nearly two feet. Its pincers came forward and lashed out at Peet’s steel beam. The giant pulled it away as if to tease the machine, careful to place his feet on as firm a foundation as possible.
The two-tonner struggled briefly up a rise, and Peet slammed his beam into one side of it and then up around into the other. The thing wobbled but steadied itself.
“The knee!” Kimberlain screamed. “Go for its knee!”
Peet must have realized it at the same time, because his next blow was already whirling that way, impacting squarely against the joint.
Clang!
The sound was deafening. Peet brought his beam back and slashed it round once more.
CLANG!
Louder, harder. The two-tonner’s leg bent inward and locked there. Peet went for the other one, but his precarious balance betrayed him and the two-tonner was able to grasp the beam within one of its pincers. It jerked upward but, incredibly, the giant stood his ground. Larry thrust its other pincer out, and Peet blocked it with the end of the beam he still controlled. The two-tonner shoved with all its force, and Peet went flying, the steel beam tumbling to the scrap-strewn mound after him. His massive b
ald head slammed into a stove and he lay there still.
“Peet!” the Ferryman shouted, still struggling unsuccessfully to extricate himself from Curly. “Peet!”
Larry moved for the kill, its left leg bent inward and dragging. Its good leg kicked aside the relics in its path, and it climbed the steep hill of junk. The two-tonner’s pincers angled themselves forward and down.
Kimberlain watched Peet’s fingers close on the steel beam from his downed position in the instant the two-tonner loomed over him. The bald giant started the beam in motion, even as Larry swooped in low with its pincers.
The deadly pincers stopped inches from Peet’s face as he drove the beam into the Larry’s midsection. The intent of the move was not clear to Kimberlain until he saw an explosion of dark ooze spray outward onto Peet.
Oil, hydraulic fluid! Peet had smashed the two-tonner in the one place it was truly vulnerable. Without the fluid pumping through it, Larry’s flexible parts seized up almost instantly. It seemed to hang there in slow, surreal motion before it keeled over backward, frozen in the same attack position it had assumed just seconds before.
Peet regained his feet and moved toward the Ferryman. As big as he was, his stride was light and graceful as a dancer’s. His massive chest and shoulder muscles rippled beneath the splattering of oil. Wordlessly, he reached down and hoisted Curly up, allowing Kimberlain to drag his lower body out.
“Can you walk, Ferryman?” he asked as he eased an arm beneath him.
“I’ll manage.”
Kimberlain was almost upright when his legs gave way. Consciousness had faded even before Peet caught him halfway to the ground. The giant leaned over and hoisted the Ferryman effortlessly upon his shoulder. Something made him stop at that point and turn about. His gaze turned upward. Mounted on a light standard high above the junkyard was a camera watching him through the darkness like an eye.
Andrew Harrison Leeds jumped to his feet, the wheel-based desk chair jetting backward across the floor. The face peered through the camera at him and then was gone.
