by James Axler
She straightened, and her eyes met those of Krysty. The redhead was shocked at the look on Mildred's face. "What?" she asked.
"Just realized. There's no compressed-air suction pump here in Deathlands."
"Course not."
"So I have to do it."
"Do what, Mildred? I don't get… Oh, Gaia! No, no, you can't."
"He'll die. Even if I do this, then he'll still probably not make it unless Ryan can come back with some sort of antibiotic."
Doc had straightened and was lifting the dented metal can of water off the fire, using a piece of old blanket. The liquid was bubbling and steaming.
"Ready, Mildred." Seeing what she was about to do, he knelt and placed the can on the floor, with the most painstaking care, before rushing to his corner for a third noisy time.
Mildred bent over, bringing her face closer and closer to the festering sore, with its lacy veil of minute worms.
Closer.
And began to suck it clean with her lips.
RYAN HAD WATCHED through the front passenger's ob-slit as the wag roared at full throttle into the gang of scalies, scattering them. There was the distinctive metallic thud as the wing clipped one of the muties, sending him spinning to the side.
"Nice driving, Sam," Harry praised. "He should be giving his blood at the local blood bank, not on the highway. And this is Broderick Crawford, saying, see you next week." He gave a great roar of laughter. "Bet you never heard of him, did you, Ryan?"
"No."
"Old actor on the vids. Prog called Highway Patrol. Had a kind of homily each time. I got a whole run back home. Could show you."
The eight-wheeler skidded sideways on a sharp corner, lifting slightly on one side. Ryan grabbed at a sissy bar in front of him to keep steady.
Harry laughed again. "Take it easy there, Sam. Remember that a clown at the circus is real funny but on the highway he's a killer."
"Where d'you get the diesel for this recce wag?" Ryan shouted.
"Know what it is?"
It was a clever way of avoiding answering the question.
"Think so. Friend of mine would know better. Think it's an LAV. Twenty-five or -six. Got a six-cylinder engine. Close to three hundred horsepower. Does about sixty miles an hour on smooth pavement, and it'll go in water. How's that?"
Once again Stanton replied with a question. "This friend who knows even more than you about weaponry. Name wouldn't be Dix, would it?"
Ryan played him at his own game. "How you hear of J.B.Dix?"
"I know you, Ryan. Remember your face. Remember what a cold-eyed bitching bastard you were. Even as a young kid."
"I don't remember you."
"Only a few weeks after you joined up with the Trader. You were too busy keeping the cheeks of your ass pressed together and walking tough. Me and the Trader went way back. And I knew Marsh Folsom. Him and the Trader found them war wags up in the Apps, you know?"
"I know it."
"Well, it'll take us a while before we're snug in the fortress. Tell me about what you're doing."
"Long story. It'll take time."
Again the merry laughter. "Something we got plenty of."
MILDRED KEPT SPITTING. At first the clumps of frothy saliva contained a number of wriggling maggots. Then, gradually, it became clearer.
Krysty had wiped up most of the newly hatched insects, using a corner of rag, then throwing it into the fire, where it hissed and bubbled among the flames.
"Wound looks clean," Doc said, his face as pale as old parchment.
Mildred straightened. "Get a branch and bring it here. One that's burning brightly."
The old man did as he was told. Mildred also told Krysty to get the can of boiling water ready for use.
"This has to be done. Only way to clean it. Then his system has a chance if Ryan can…" She gave a sudden, gasping breath and swayed, as though she were about to faint.
"Mildred! Are you okay?"
"Fine. I'm fucking well fine, thanks. Look, he'll probably struggle. We got him tied and he's weak. But he'll still struggle. Doc, kneel astride his legs and get ready to hang on. Krysty, you'll have to lie on his chest and then try to hold his arms through the coverings."
"What are you going to do?" Doc looked at the flaming piece of wood in his hand and at the tin can of bubbling water. "Oh, I see."
"It'll leave him with a scar, just on the angle of the jaw. Still, it shouldn't be too easy to see. I hope."
Krysty touched her gently on the arm. "Mildred, if he lives, I can't see J.B. losing sleep over a small scar. Can you?"
"Guess not. You both ready?"
Doc was sitting astride the unconscious man's legs, pressing down with all his weight. Krysty had braced herself, gripping J.B.'s arms.
Mildred was on the floor, trying to position herself in a way to keep the Armorer's head between her thighs.
Doc suddenly gave a short, cackling laugh. "Sorry. Just thinking that if he wasn't out cold, then our dear friend would probably be taking some pleasure in lying like that, Mildred."
"Doc," the woman said.
"What?"
"Button that mouth, will you? And give me the burning piece of wood. Krysty, the water as soon as I call for it. Ready?"
Chapter Thirty-Two
DEAN HAD BEEN fast asleep, dreaming of riding on the back of his mother's two-wheeler wag. The big Harley powered over the undulating highway, dust drifting beneath the tires. On either side were a succession of stark red mesas and buttes, sculpted by wind, sun and frost. His mother, Rona, had known the colorful names of them all, telling which was called Owl Mesa and which Mexican Hat Butte.
The boy's sleeping memories carried him on an endless quest, his arms around the woman's waist, face pressed to her back, the scent of sweat and denim mingling in his nostrils with the bitter spice of sagebrush. The roaring of the engine filled his head, the vibration surging through his wiry body.
Now and again he would turn his head to left or right and see the little hogans of the Navaho, hear the hollow sound as they crossed high bridges over silent rapids.
Ever onward.
He never knew how Rona always seemed to manage to find gas for them, but in his dreams they would stop at ramshackle trading posts where smiling men would climb the stairs with his mother. He would sit silently at a corner table until she returned.
And they moved on, the highway unrolling in front of them, the powerful bike hugging the thin white center line.
It was a dream that came back to the ten-year-old again and again. His mother was always smiling and well before the illness settled on her shoulders and began to draw the life from her.
The reality that had reduced her to a trembling skull never intruded.
In the dream the motorcycle seemed to steer itself while Rona sang to him, old songs about shady rivers and brave, roving men. And there was the dark figure of his father, a tall, impossibly handsome and courageous man who wore a black patch over his wounded eye.
One day the boy knew his father would come from around an unexpected corner, and they would live and laugh together forever.
The hand across his mouth jerked him from the sunny, idyllic past into the cold, dark, frightening present.
"Quiet," came a croaking voice close to his ear. The breath in his face stank of rotten fish.
Dean didn't struggle. The mutie holding him felt immensely strong, and he knew from experience how short-fused their tempers could be. He lay quite still and waited.
"Good boy." The hand lifted.
Dean could taste the salt warmth of blood where his lips had been crushed against his sharp front teeth. "What do you want?"
"Quiet! Don't want captain to hear. Poke in black places after me. I be away from him."
Dean sat up, unable to see much in the gloom beyond the broad shoulders of the scalie. The white flash on the beret stood out brightly.
"What do you want?" he asked.
One of the clawed
hands touched him on the knee, and the boy's breath froze in his lungs. Rona had warned him about men who would want to do things to him. Awful, hurtful things. And, even at ten, Dean had seen and heard enough to know precisely what his mother had meant.
"You be good to I, and I good to you. Help you in soft work and big food."
The fingers gripped him, making him gasp.
He could just see that food was being served down in the center of the vast, damp concrete cavern and smell the fish-based stew.
"Time to eat," he said, conscious of how small and weak his voice sounded.
"I be saying when time eat. You be good and I be good to you. Know what I say?"
"Yes. I know."
And he didn't even have the slim-bladed dagger with the turquoise hilt. At least he might have opened the scalie's throat and then tried to sneak into another part of the complex.
The scalie let go of him and shuffled upright, looming over the little boy like a reptilian monolith. One hand leaned against the wall while the other fumbled with the cord that laced up the front of its trousers.
"Be careful. Or—"
"I will. I'd like to do it for you, but there's a sort of difficulty."
The hand paused, already reaching inside the gaping slit. "What difficulty?"
The boy managed a tremulous smile, trying to show the right mixture of eagerness and fearful apprehension.
"Can't stop biting." He clacked his teeth sharply together as he spoke.
"Biting?"
"Yeah."
"Biting what?" The long snout quested toward him, breathing suspicion.
Dean was used to lying. Rona had taught him from his earliest memory that you lied to everyone except your closest and most trusted friends. You only lied to them when it suited you. "Sorry, Captain," he whispered. "Might bite you by mistake and hurt you. I wouldn't want to do that to you."
The scalie finally got the message, straightening up with a long hiss of anger, its fingers fastening its pants again. "I be angry."
"I said I was sorry, Captain."
"I be angry. You bite me?"
Dean shook his head. "No. No, of course not, Captain. That's the point. I don't want to bite you, but I might if you made me—"
The scalie swung a cuffing, round-arm blow at the dark, curly head, feeling a satisfying jar as the slap connected. "I be eating, and you not be eating this day," it said as it stalked clumsily off.
Dean was knocked semiconscious by the blow, but he'd seen it coming and had managed to ride the worst of the impact. Going without food was no great hardship. A slip of a lad like him could always duck and dive and creepy-crawl through the shadows and scavenge something to keep belly and backbone apart.
He rubbed his head and lay down again. Sleep returned to him, unbidden. This time it wasn't the sunny dreams of happy times with his mother. Now he was in a ville somewhere among the red and gold trees of the northeast in a spooky house known locally as the old Jackson place. A part of his mind knew he'd responded to the challenge of the local slow-witted, brute-eyed louts and spent a night alone in the creaking frame house. He saw nothing worse than a large, vicious bat.
The dream was different.
Now there were doors in the house and shutters over unbroken windows. Upstairs he heard something walking, walking alone as it had since the dawn of time.
His feet dragged up a wide, candlelit staircase, through quiet dust. Above him the sound had stopped.
Dean lifted his head unwilling to see a man standing at the head of the stairs, reaching out a hand. The face wore a glittering and cold smile, and one eye was covered by a black leather patch.
In the headquarters of the scalie hordes the boy's lips moved, but nobody was close enough to hear him.
"Daddy," he called. "Oh, Daddy."
Chapter Thirty-Three
DOC SWALLOWED HARD. He could still taste the bitterness of bile, the result of his earlier vomiting, and the cellar, with the door tugged shut, now reeked of scorched flesh.
Mildred thrust the burning branch against J.B.'s cheek, grinding it deep into the open sore. The Armorer briefly recovered a sort of consciousness. His mouth stretched open in a high, strangled scream of pain, and it took all of their combined strength to hold him still while he kicked and thrashed.
As Mildred took the smoking length of wood away, wiping with her fingers at the smoldering shreds of blackened skin, J.B. fell back into a coma. He didn't stir even slightly as she poured the boiling water into the wound, carefully rubbing with the cleanest bit of rag she could find to remove every possible trace of the insect's eggs.
When Mildred finished, Krysty brought over a large branch, holding it above the unconscious man so that Mildred could examine her work.
The wound looked surprisingly healthy, pink around the edges, brimming with fresh, clean blood at its center. At its widest it was nearly two inches across, roughly circular. It was below the left ear, close to the angle of the jaw.
"He'll have a sizable scar," Doc observed.
Mildred wiped sweat from her forehead, sighing. "Like Krysty told us, Doc. If he does pull through on this, then he's not going to worry much about a bitsy scar, is he?"
"You think he'll make it, Mildred?" Krysty asked. "You got the poison out of him."
"No, I got those creatures out of the hole. It was like a maggot eatery in there. The infection's gone into his blood, deep into his body. Without some sort of drugs he's had it."
RYAN STARTED TO READ the list of drugs from the folded piece of paper, stumbling over the pronunciation of the long chemical names.
"They're all antibiotics. Penicillin, I know about. Tetracyclines, cep… cephalexin, eryth… romycin. Fireblast! Can't read her writing. Strept…"
"Streptomycin," Harry said, reaching out for the list. "Colistin." He nodded. "Which ones do you want?"
Ryan opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Which ones do… ? How many you got?"
"All these and plenty more. From what you say about J. B. Dix, I figure the tetracyclines might be best for you. What did the doctor woman say?"
"Yeah. Mildred said they were first choice."
"I'll give this to Labman. He's in charge of that section of stuff."
"How much will it cost?"
Stanton raised a red-sleeved arm, his mouth thinning under the luxuriant beard and mustache. "Not a question I want to hear from someone who rode with Trader. Understand?"
"Sure. And thanks."
"While you're here I'll show you around some more. Probably need some ammo. I got most kinds."
"Could use some .36 rounds for a cap-and-ball pistol."
Stanton slapped his ample thigh and roared with laughter. "Same old Ryan! You think I'll say we don't have any. Well, fuck you, buddy boy. We got a box filled with them. What else? Some more 9 mm for that very nice SIG-Sauer?"
"Yeah. You haven't got any 4.7 mm caseless, do you?"
Stanton rubbed his chin. "Like the guy goes in the restaurant that promises any food on earth. Asks for the foreskin of an elephant on toast. Waiter comes back and tells him he's real sorry, but they've run out of bread." A bellow of laughter made his stomach shake. "You get it, Ryan?"
"I get it. You got the caseless rounds?"
"What the hell kind of blaster's that? Automatic rifle?"
"Heckler & Koch G-12. Lovely piece of hardware, but ammo's not easy in Deathlands."
Harry rubbed his chin. "See what we got. Let's go look around my little place."
THE "LITTLE PLACE" WAS the most amazing complex Ryan had ever seen and contained the most staggering collection of prenuke artifacts he could ever have imagined.
Afterward he tried to remember a fraction of what he'd seen, but found that it all blurred, one room into another.
He wasn't even quite sure precisely where the King of the Underworld actually had his empire. He guessed that it lay beneath one of the nuked areas, perhaps where the tallest of the skyscrapers had been, where m
iles of underground passages and storerooms linked up. Stanton had cut and tunneled, enlarging his territory, and brought in armed men to cover the many hidden entrances and exits. He attracted those, like Labman, with areas of strange or arcane knowledge.
He admitted to Ryan's questioning that he didn't actually know the limits of his turf.
"But how d'you start to get this much power and trade for all… all this?"
Another laugh. "Garbage bags, my friend."
"You what?"
Stanton reached and topped up his crystal goblet from the decanter of Armagnac at his elbow, offering it to Ryan, who shook his head.
"Black, strong, large bags of plastic, refuse for the disposal of."
"You started by trading those?"
"Not many things, apart from good blasters, worth more in old Newyork. About eight years ago I was digging on the upper east side a couple of blocks in from the big river."
Ryan wiped the remnants of his meal—smoked fish in a cream sauce, with sliced, fried potatoes and canned vegetables—from the decorated plate, using a crust of fresh white bread.
Harry continued. "Broke through into a warehouse. Used the hookups to see what was there. Looked fucking boring, I tell you that, Ryan. Shelf after shelf with pallet after pallet of what looked like paper. Not a lot of use. Got my toothpick out and sliced open the nearest container, and there it was."
"A garbage bag," Ryan said.
"Not just a garbage bag. One thousand of the little black beauties."
"Thousand won't go far in this ville."
"Right. What an intellect! The thousand were in one pack. Each pallet held five. Each shelf held five pallets. Each row held 250 shelves. And the whole building had twenty rows."
Ryan had been trying to do his sums on the move, but the quantities eventually defeated him. "That must be—"
"A shit load of bags!" Harry exclaimed triumphantly. "Want to know just how many?"
"Yeah."
"Call it 125 million, give or take a few million torn or missing."
Ryan whistled. "How many you got left now?"
