Shatter Zone

by James Axler

  A few yards away, the other sluts from the gaudy house were clustered together, weeping and holding one another for protection. Shelly, Elisa, Lara. Their faces were streaked with road dust, their hair sticking out in wild disarray, their clothing ripped and torn, the combination giving them an almost feral look. Shelly and Elisa were fully clothed, but Lara was wearing only a thin cotton dress made from an old bedsheet. Most of the buttons had been ripped away to partially expose her pink-tipped breasts, and it was abundantly clear that she was wearing nothing underneath the thin material. Her dark eyes full of terror, Lara was also bleeding from the wrists where she had clearly tried to chew her way loose.

  That had been foolish, Lily thought, rubbing her own wrists. If she had gotten free during the ride here, what then? Fall off the bike and get chilled?

  Sheathing his knife, John grabbed Lily by the hair and pulled her up to face the sun. Noon? No, it was afternoon, she realized, almost evening. Wherever this was, it was very far from Dempster. No hope of the ville sec men coming to rescue her, then. Even if any of them were still alive.

  Blinking against the pain, Lily tried to keep a neutral expression. Obey. Obey their every command and live. She knew there was no other choice. Death wouldn’t be offered to her as an option.

  “Bah, little sister is too groggy to party,” John declared, releasing his grip. “Too damn ugly, too. Must be part mutie, I bet.”

  Lily said nothing, accepting the insult.

  “Okay, bitch, get moving and start cooking dinner.” John laughed, wiping a hand on his shirt as if she were diseased. “Meanwhile, we are gonna go ride your friends for a while.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lily muttered, rising stiffly to her bare feet. Friends? Those are no friends of mine, she thought bitterly, remembering how badly she was treated at Dempster by the madam and the others. Once her brothers had left the ville, everybody in town had taken their revenge on her for their actions.

  “At least Lily knows her proper place.”

  “What about the others?” Alan asked, pulling a knife from his sleeve and testing the edge on a thumb.

  “Their place is bent over a table,” Robert croaked, fingering the jagged scar on his throat.

  “Nuking right it is!” Edward growled. Going over to the women, he grabbed the one in the ripped dress and hauled her erect, the rest of the dress coming off in the process.

  Shivering more in fear than from the cold, Lara tried to smile at the big man, but his expression only made her flinch in horror. Laughing at her reaction, Edward started to run his hands over her body, while the rest of the brothers went to the other sluts and brutally stripped off their clothing, slapping the girls when they didn’t move fast enough to comply with their unspoken commands.

  “Too bad we couldn’t haul along one more,” John said, clearly enjoying himself. “But beggars can’t be choosers, eh, brothers?”

  The three Rogans raucously agreed and hauled the now screaming women across the grass and into the concrete building.

  As the iron door closed with a solid boom, Lily cast a furtive glance at the row of sleek motorcycles, but raw fear put an end to her thoughts about jacking a ride. What should she do? What could she do? The obvious answer was get busy cooking.

  Shuffling to the fire, Lily found wood and a bucket of water, along with cans of food such as she had never seen. She couldn’t read the words, but the pictures were clear enough. One showed what looked like beef stew, and another can illustrated whole white potatoes, plus coffee, sugar… This was chow for a baron. A fortune in predark food. Where had they gotten such things? Thank goodness no tech was involved here.

  Building a blaze, Lily got some water boiling for coffee, and started the stew simmering, stirring the food with a green stick after peeling off the bark. Concentrating on the task at hand, Lily did her best to ignore the sounds of pain and laughter coming from inside the concrete building. Better them than me, she thought. She had heard about the perverted appetites of her brothers, and there was no doubt what was happening to the three women behind the closed iron door.

  Going to fetch some water from the pool, Lily passed near one of the machines, and it gave a mechanical whoop, the headlights flashing wildly. What the hell?

  Almost instantly, the door to the building was thrown open and John stepped into view. He was stark naked and clearly interrupted in the middle of having sex, but there was also a ready blaster held in his hand. A single glance from the furious man sent Lily scurrying back to the cook fire.

  “Mind your place, bitch,” John snarled menacingly, clicking back the hammer of the massive wheelgun. “Or else you’ll be next!”

  Dumbly, she nodded in submission. After a few moments he closed the door with a bang.

  As the day wore on, Lily stole a few spoons of the stew to ease her stabs of hunger. When evening arrived, she did her best to keep the stew and coffee from burning. Her brothers would want lots to eat when they were done. Hopefully they wouldn’t have her for dessert. Hunching her shoulders, Lily grabbed a fistful of warm ashes and rubbed it into her hair, then smeared dirt across her pretty features. Then bit a lip and smeared the blood about. The less attractive she looked, the better.

  Eventually night came and the usual storm clouds covered the stars. With the moon behind a flat-top mesa on the horizon, the wooden glen was blanketed in darkness, the only source of light coming from the campfire, and some twinkling red dots on the curved dashboards of the sleek ebony wags.

  Hoarding the small supply of wood, Lily banked the flames and did her best to nurse the blaze along, adding water to the stew when needed, and finally throwing away the old coffee to make a new batch. There was more than enough, so they shouldn’t miss a handful wasted. Or would they?

  Almost dropping the bucket, Lily jerked at the sounds of three blaster shots. Then the door to the blockhouse swung open and the four men walked out of the building. John was holstering a blaster, and there was no sign of the kidnapped gaudy sluts.

  “Now we’re gonna have a little chat with you about trying to jack a bike,” Edward said, pulling off his belt, starting to wrap it around a scarred fist.

  Backing away from the crackling fire, Lily pressed her face into her hand and began to weep, knowing the night of pain was only just beginning.

  RUNNING, RUNNING endlessly. Ryan was running through the predark ruins of some nameless city. The one-eyed youth was down to the last arrow in his crossbow and the black-powder Colt blaster in his holster was empty. Fireblast, there had been so many of the muties he thought the fighting would never end! Now he was alone, lost in a strange city, cut off from the colonel, and bleeding from the wound in his aching side.

  Stopping on a corner, Ryan glanced down all four streets of the intersection to make sure the area was clear. Then he gingerly removed the shirt, the cloth sticking to his skin from the layers of dried blood. That bullwhip had cut him deep, but the youth had managed to chill the mutie master before the coldhearts arrived and changed the tide of battle. Why the nuking hell would anybody fight on the side of the stickies? Made no damn sense at all.

  Pulling out his Bowie knife, Ryan carefully cut the shirt into long strips and bound the wound as best he could. He knew some shine would help, both to fight infection and for the pain. But his canteen was empty. Mebbe he could find a tavern or liquor store in the ruins.

  Glancing hopefully about, he saw a building that stood out from all of the others. Damnedest thing, the exterior was just as badly damaged as all of the others, cracked with age, and with hundreds of ancient pockmarks, blaster holes from the rioting after sky-dark. But it was clean of any ivy or dirt on the windows. Walking closer, Ryan stared at the building, and shivered from the oddest feeling that somebody was staring back at him from inside. Was the place inhabited? If so, mebbe he could trade for some food or black powder.

  However, the front of the building was covered with a steel grating, as impenetrable as the Border ville gate. But on the side of the store was a
small set of brick stairs that lead to a green metal door. A door on the second floor? That was odd.

  As he climbed the steps, Ryan saw there was some sort of a symbol etched into the metal. Not just scratched into the paint, but actually carved into the steel itself and then painted over as if to hide its existence. A circle, surrounded by an oval with a small star set off to one side—

  WITH A GASP, Ryan sat up and banged his head on something hard. Spitting curses, he massaged the cut and tried to look around, but everything was pitch-black, and the world seemed off kilter. The dream. He had been having that dream again. The empty desert ville, the door on the second floor and that weird symbol of circles and a star. It had to have been years since the last time he suffered through the triple-damn thing. Then everything came rushing back and Ryan realized that he was still buckled into the driving seat of the LAV.

  Fireblast, they had to be underground! There was dampness on his shirt. He checked himself over for wounds, but it was only mud from their descent. Had they actually survived the fall? Incredible. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be falling anymore, but there was still the background sound of running water.

  Trying to shift about in the driving seat, Ryan felt something crawl across his face and swatted at his cheek. Nothing there. It took the groggy man a few seconds to realize there was dirt falling on him. But how…oh yeah, the windshield had been broken.

  Trying to listen past the splashing water, Ryan dimly heard labored breathing. Okay, some of others had to also be alive. Good. However, they were probably hurt, and any one of them could have been aced in the landslide. Krysty.

  Trying not to think about that, Ryan struggled to get out of the tilted seat, and found that the Steyr had somehow become tangled with the steering yoke. Trapped by his own longblaster! Forcing his hands to reach behind his shoulders, the Deathlands warrior finally reached the strap and clumsily got the buckle released. The Steyr promptly came loose and started to slip out the broken window. Damn! Ryan made a desperate grab for the wep, but it sailed free and disappeared into the darkness. He began to curse again when the weapon clattered onto something hard and there was an answering echo.

  The wag had to be in some kind of a cavern or underground passage, Ryan guessed. There was no way of telling at the moment, and he had much more pressing problems at the moment.

  Fumbling his hands along the dashboard, Ryan found the controls for the interior lights and flipped the switches, but there was no response. Either the tubes were busted or the wiring was ripped. If the nuke batteries had broken open, then the whole chassis would have been electrified and everybody chilled.

  Rummaging in his jacket pocket, Ryan found his butane lighter and pulled it free, then paused to sniff. Okay, the air was clear of gas fumes. No chance of roasting themselves alive from a fuel spill. Satisfied, he thumbed the butane lighter alive, the tiny flame a welcome sight. Turning the wheel to the stop, Ryan made the blue flame grow inches high, casting a moonlight glow around the interior of the angled wag.

  With her thick hair hanging limply across her face, Krysty was slumped over in the navigator seat, an arm sticking out the smashed side window. Reaching out slowly, Ryan gingerly touched her exposed throat and sighed in relief when he felt a strong pulse. She was just unconscious.

  “Anybody alive?” Ryan asked over the noise of the rushing water. His voice was low and guttural, sounding like something that had just crawled out of a grave. Blind norad, he could use a drink of water.

  Groans and mutters answered from the darkness below.

  Extinguishing the lighter, Ryan tucked it away, knowing this next action would require both hands. Fighting his way free from the seat, Ryan found the footing tricky on the slanted floor, and as he moved, the armored wag shifted position slightly. Shitfire, the ground had to still be settling. Or else they were simply on a slope and about to plunge into an abyss again. There was a towline and winch on the front of the APC that might stop the wag. If he could get outside without starting an avalanche, and if he could find something to attach the line to… He’d have to take it easy or else he might send them all straight to the bottom of who knew what? It was a nuking miracle they were still sucking air, and he damn well knew for a fact the universe never gave you two miracles in a row.

  “Dark night, my head… Millie, you okay?” J.B. asked from the blackness.

  “B-been better,” Mildred panted, fingers checking over her body for any damage. No bones seemed broken, and there was no feeling of numbness to indicate a major trauma. That was good news.

  “Where are you?” J.B. asked, and there came a clatter of objects falling over. “Damn!”

  Reaching out for the man, Mildred encountered only air until touching his glasses. He grunted in surprise, then took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. The two shared a private moment in the Stygian blackness, each celebrating that the other was still alive. Then the couple was interrupted by the scratching of the metal striker and the hissing flame of a butane lighter held by Ryan. The one-eyed man’s face was grim in the flickering light. The two shared a nod, acknowledging their amazing luck.

  Now looking around, Mildred could see that the LAV was tilted backward and canted slightly to the left. Ammo boxes and fuel cans were tumbled together, muddy shards of bulletproof glass lying everywhere and reflecting a rainbow of colors. There was the sound of water nearby, along with the rustling noise of crumbling dirt, occasionally punctuated by the dull thud of a falling object. Probably a brick or loose stone. They were underground!

  “What happened?” Mildred asked, swallowing hard. The armored personnel carrier wasn’t on an even keel, and her stomach was very unhappy about the unorthodox position.

  “We survived,” Ryan answered humorlessly, one hand holding on to the rim of a gren bin, the gray duct tape bulging from the pile of mil spheres inside.

  Unexpectedly, there came a long string of biting vulgarities, and Ryan allowed himself a rare smile at the realization it was from the usual demur Doc.

  “That’s pretty good, Doc.” J.B. chuckled. “Never heard that last one before. A camel, you say?”

  “Indeed, it was a particular favorite of my old host, Cort Strasser,” Doc rumbled, pushing a bedroll off his chest. “Especially when he was torturing me…” The scholar broke into a ragged cough before continuing. “And what is our current status, my dear Ryan? Are we buried alive?”

  “Can’t tell yet. I’ll let you know,” Ryan replied, then stopped at the sight of Jak. The teenager was slumped over in his jumpseat, blood matted in his white hair.

  “Millie, Jak’s hurt!” J.B. cried.

  “So I see. Get me out of this,” Mildred demanded, struggling with the seat belt. “The goddamn buckle is jammed, or something!”

  Drawing his panga, Ryan cut the physician loose and she crawled like a crab across the piles of jumbled supplies to reach the still teen.

  Curiously, Ryan stared at the shiny length of the curved blade. Panga? Didn’t he just have the Bowie? No, wait that was just the dream. Damn thing felt so real sometimes he got confused when he awoke, not sure which was real, and which was the dream. He sheathed the blade. Old battle didn’t matter. The Mutie Wars had been over for decades.

  Easing out of his jumpseat, J.B. immediately lost his hat, the fedora fluttering down to land on the closed rear door amid a surplus of random items. Muttering under his breath, J.B. grabbed the hammock and hauled himself in the other direction, pawing through the cartons, boxes and bags.

  Removing the tunnel brick that was lying on Jak’s shoulder, Mildred gently probed the scalp wound with her fingertips and found no serious damage. A couple of stitches should fix the teenager just fine. Unless he had a concussion, but there was nothing she could do about that. CAT scans and X-rays were as long gone as delivery pizza and cable TV.

  Looking around in the dim light, Mildred found her med kit and got to work. Sitting nearby, Doc flicked his own butane lighter into life to aid with the medical adminis
trations, and soon the teen exhaled sharply and sat bolt upright.

  “Shit,” Jak drawled. “Get nuked?”

  “Close enough. The tunnel collapsed,” Mildred told him, threading a new length of fishing line into the upholstery needle. “Now be still. I’m not done with the stitching. You have a nasty scalp wound.”

  “Know that,” Jak answered sullenly, looking away from the curved length of needle-sharp steel in her hand. He glanced about, his red eyes going wide. “How wag?”

  “We don’t know yet. But Ryan is going to do a recce.”

  “Good. Ouch!”

  “I said to sit still!”

  From the front of the wag there came a low groan and then a third butane flame appeared brightening the interior of the war wag considerably.

  “Hi, lover,” Krysty whispered, her hair flexing weakly around the pale face.

  Impulsively, Ryan extended an arm, but the woman was out of reach. “You okay?” he asked, concern deepening his voice.

  “Just fine.” She smiled weakly. “Mother Gaia must have been with us today.”

  “Not all of the bastard time, she wasn’t,” Ryan replied, slipping slightly on the floor. “Just at the end.”

  “Where it counted the most.”

  He turned off his lighter. “If you say so.”

  Finding a canteen, Ryan took a long drink, then passed it to the others. By the time it came back, the container was empty, but everybody stopped coughing. Good enough for now.

  Bracing his boot against the gunport, Ryan awkwardly walked down the inside of the wag, stepping from gunnery chair to the fuel can, to a cardboard box full of MRE packs, then landing solidly on the closed rear door.

  Waiting for any movement from the wag, Ryan relaxed a bit when nothing happened, then kicked off the latch. As the hatch swung free, loose items began to rain out, clattering down onto what sounded like bare stones, but then there came a couple of watery splashes.

  “Here,” Doc said, holding out his ebony stick.

  Accepting the sheathed sword, Ryan wedged it into place as a prop to hold the hatch open, and shook the stick a few times to make sure the lid wouldn’t slam back down onto somebody’s hand or head. That much steel would remove fingers faster than an angry baron.