James Axler - Deathlands 27 - Ground Zero Read online

  She had been watching him out of the corner of her eye, seeing the spasm of pain, the tightening of the bloodless lips, the whitening of the knuckles.

  "Bad," he admitted.

  "No," she said. "Not actually that bad. Now that I know what's wrong I can do something about it. There's a couple of scalpels and probes in this box, as well as some loc-an cream. It'll take four or five minutes to track down the bits of stone, now that I know roughly where they are." She smiled and patted the sixteen-year-old on the cheek. "This'll hurt you more than it hurts me, Jak."

  BY THE THIRD DAY he was walking much better, able to take all of his weight on the injured right leg.

  J.B. was healing fastest. It was just a question of giving the musket-ball wound a thorough clean then sprinkling in some antibiotic powder and tying on a fresh bandage.

  Ryan lay on his stomach on the tiled floor, while Mildred knelt beside him, poking with a finger at the double arrow wound, ignoring him when he winced. "This should be healing better, Ryan." She sat back on her heels. "The rest here will make all the difference. Been doing too much running around, keeping both the entrance and exit wounds open and bleeding."

  "Sorry, ma'am. Sure will try to keep myself quiet while we're inside the redoubt."

  Krysty came in, leaning against the doorframe. "Not making him holler enough, Mildred," she said, smiling at Ryan to take the sting from her words.

  "Just finishing bandaging the invalid."

  Krysty nodded, her fiery hair tumbling around her perfect face, her green eyes glinting at her friends. "You been telling him he should rest more?"

  Mildred tied the last neat knot and stood up, patting Ryan on the shoulder. "There. All done. If we move on the day after tomorrow, I can bandage it one more time before the jump. Not doing too badly, though."

  Ryan pulled on his shut and tucked it in. "Thanks a lot, Mildred."

  "Welcome, kind sir." She bobbed him a curtsy.

  "Jak and J.B. getting along well?" Krysty asked. "Boy seemed to be moving easier."

  "Definitely. But dear John Dix isn't used to being still in one place for three long days. Getting to him. Fieldstripped the Uzi thirty-seven times and the Smith & Wesson scattergun sixty-eight times." She laughed. "No, I'm exaggerating." A measured pause passed. "But not much."

  BY NOON OF THE FOURTH DAY, everyone was ready to move. They'd all had enough of the claustrophobic concrete walls of the small redoubt, and the pleasure of hot baths and reasonable food was beginning to wear thin.

  "Getting cabin fever, Ryan," Jak said.

  "Yeah. Know what you mean. If I see another rad-blasted can of Aunt Abbie's All-American Avocado and Artichoke Dip, I swear I'll scream."

  They'd just finished eating breakfast and were all sitting around one of the Formica-topped tables in the brightly lighted refectory.

  The greasy plates were all neatly stacked at one end, and the seven plastic mugs, holding the dregs of the coffee sub, were piled with them.

  "I can't stand any more of Rik'n Mik's Lemon Meringue Pie mix," J.B. added.

  "I bemoan the lack of a decent Lafitte in the candlelit cellars. Or a halfway drinkable Mouton Cadet." Doc shook his leonine head sadly. "Or even a bottle of anything that remotely resembled wine."

  "How about you, Dean?" his father asked. "I haven't seen you turn your nose up at anything here."

  The boy considered the question, picking his teeth with a long fingernail and investigating what he'd excavated. "What do I hate most about the food?"

  "Yeah."

  "Feroze's Frozen Grits." He pulled a face, quoting from the label. "So good you can't stop comin' back for more." He shook his head. "Yuck!"

  "Least we got plenty of hot water for washing up," Mildred said, yawning. "And I believe that today's rota has Doc and Jak on that particular duty."

  "Makes fingers wrinkle," the albino protested. "Not man's work."

  "How wrong you are, young fellow," Mildred said briskly. "And standing on that bad leg can help to give it some gentle exercise." She whirled. "And just where in the blue blazes do you think you're creeping off to, old-timer?"

  Doc stopped in midstride, halfway to the door, his face flushing at being caught. "I swear that you are my personal nemesis, Dr. Wyeth, sent from the idle godlings of Olympus to persecute me."

  "Just collect up the dishes and get out in the sluice room, Doc."

  "I believe that you are a reincarnation of Torquemada, cruel leader of the Inquisition. I swear that no moral woman could be so cruel."

  "Watch my lips, Doc. Do. the.dishes!" Doc looked at his hands. "Ah, me. I shall never play the viola da gamba again."

  Mildred laughed delightedly. "But you can't play it anyway, Doc!"

  Jak limped to join the old man, tugging at his sleeve. "Might as well make river flow uphill, Doc," he said.

  THEY STARTED toward the gateway first thing next morning, all of them glad to be moving on again. The only obstacle in their way out of the redoubt was the small elevator.

  Ryan was uneasy about taking the metal cage down to the lower level. There had been some triple-bad experiences in elevators in the past couple of years. In Deathlands you always aimed to avoid putting yourself into any sort of trap.

  Or potential trap.

  And there were few more potentially hazardous traps than elevators.

  The cage was still waiting patiently for them, the neon strip light above the entrance buzzing faintly. Its door hissed open as Dean pressed the button.

  Ryan eased his finger off the trigger of the SIG-Sauer, seeing that the rectangular metal box was completely empty. "Let's go," he said.

  It was a squeeze for all of them to get in, and it crossed Ryan's mind that it must have been substantially more crowded on the way up, with Trader and Abe along. All of that already seemed oddly far away.

  The journey to the bottom of the shaft should only have taken a few seconds, though he estimated the drop as being close to two hundred feet.

  The elevator shuddered three-quarters of the way down, hesitating a moment, seeming to hang poised between heaven and earth. The powerful winding gear groaned in protest, and everyone froze, conversation dying.

  After a couple of seconds' delay the cage started to descend smoothly again.

  Mildred whistled between her teeth. "Sure hate it when something like that happens. Tends toward making me a nominee for what we kids used to call the Hershey squirts award."

  Doc tutted. "I do not wish to know that, madam. Kindly leave the elevator."

  She grinned at the old man. "Soon as we reach bottom, we can all leave."

  EVERYONE EXCEPT RYAN had taken their places inside the armaglass walls of the actual mat-trans chamber. The dense material was brown, flecked with white, allowing very little light to filter through.

  There was a gap between Dean and Krysty, where Ryan would soon take his place. It was now a familiar scene-Doc's ebony sword stick lying by his side; J.B. carefully folding up his precious spectacles and placing them in one of his top pockets; Mildred holding his left hand, leaning back, the plaited beads in her hair rattling softly against the wall; Jak's mane of stark white hair spread across his narrow shoulders liked a cascade of purest Sierra ice.

  "Ready?" Ryan asked. Everyone nodded, and he stepped into the chamber and closed the door firmly behind him.

  Chapter Three

  "Didn't work, Dad."

  Ryan was already aware of that. There hadn't been the usual click as the door closed that indicated the mat-trans mechanism had been triggered. He opened it and pulled it firmly shut again. Still nothing.

  J.B. bunked owlishly up at him. "Problem?"

  "No. I'm standing here opening and shutting the rad-blasted door for my health." Ryan felt the pulse of anger throbbing at his temple. " 'Course there's a problem."

  Everyone started to shift, most of them standing, moving toward him. The armorer had fished out his glasses and was perching them on his bony nose. Only Doc remained sitting on the floor of th
e chamber.

  "Leave it," Ryan snapped, thoroughly put out by the failure of the mechanism.

  If it couldn't somehow be made to function properly-and none of them had much predark technical skill-then they were in deep trouble. They would have to go back up in the untrustworthy elevator and out onto the bleak, windswept island, try to build a new raft and make it across the treacherous narrows to the sulfurous mainland with all of its perils.

  Ryan closed and opened the door several times, while the others crowded around him, offering a variety of advice.

  He was so distracted by the confusion and noise that he hardly noticed that the lock had given an audible click on the seventh attempt at slamming the heavy door.

  Before he even realized what was happening, Ryan had opened the armaglass door an eighth time.

  It was Doc's voice, rising above all the others, like a chain saw hacking through plate glass, that gave him the warning. "It's working, Ryan! By the Three Kennedys, but I swear that the jump is beginning."

  There was an instant, heart-stopping silence.

  "Dark night!" J.B. breathed. "He's right. I can feel it in my head."

  "Close the door, Ryan, quickly!" Krysty urged. "Gaia! Quickly!"

  "It won't." Ryan panted with the effort and could feel his heart racing, the breath dying in his throat.

  The door seemed to have jammed, open by about eight inches, immovable either way.

  And Doc was right. The jump had begun.

  Ryan could feel it-fingers ghosting into his brain, probing inside the moist pink-gray tissues, bringing the usual deep-seated nausea.

  The circular silvery metal plates set into the floor and ceiling of the hexagonal chamber were already beginning to glow, and the usual tendrils of fragile white mist were appearing near the top of the gateway.

  "Everyone sit down and hang on to each other."

  It was the best he could come up with. But Ryan wasn't sure if the others heard him. His voice was frail, echoing, the words jumbled and distorted.

  The anteroom and the control area beyond were blurring, as if he were looking through a heat haze. Ryan closed his eye and opened it again, using the last of his failing strength to try one more time to close the door.

  But it was too late.

  Ryan felt himself slipping to his knees, one arm falling near the gap, sliding onto his face, sensing all the colors of darkness.

  "Cold," he said.

  IT WAS A TANGLED, confused mixture of half memory and new experience.

  There was the vague thought that the original incident might have happened somewhere on the southern edge of the Darks. Or out on the Idaho panhandle?

  The war wags had come rumbling into the township, expecting to find it a bustling frontier ville. But the stores were all boarded up, the drinkers closed, the gaudies deserted. Tumbleweed piled against the picket fences.

  Trader had asked Ryan to go outside and look around. "Single man recce's the best for this," he said. "I can't smell danger."

  As soon as the main rear armasteel hatch opened up on War Wag One, Ryan guessed that his chief was right. There was no smell of danger.

  But there was the sweet, sour, prickling scent of death.

  The breath came feathering whitely from his open mouth as he stepped down onto the weed-laden tarmac, looking from side to side. He wore a Browning A-50012-gauge scattergun slung across one shoulder, the walnut stock of the Belgian-made blaster nudging at the small of his back. There was a double-action revolver-the Llama Super Comanche II, taking a big.38 round tucked in its holster on the right side of his hip.

  Ryan almost knew the name of the pesthole ville. Almost, but not quite.

  It kept slithering from the back of his brain, reaching the tip of his tongue, then whispering back into the darkness.

  All he could remember was that it had been the center of two violently opposed religious factions.

  Now, looking around the small town plaza, he could see the graffiti, bringing it all back home-Albigensians drink Satan's piss, Reformed Pentecostals will burn forever, Dung-devouring heretics, Speaking with tongues is speaking to the devil.

  The electric-glowing colors flared so brightly it made Ryan screw up his good right eye against the drizzle.

  His hand dropped to the butt of the revolver as he sensed movement behind him. He spun and looked to the side of the main drag, seeing a scrawny, piebald mongrel go scampering clumsily across the mouth of a narrow alley, gripping a severed human arm in its stained jaws, the stiff fingers scraping through the frosted pebbles.

  Beyond the main plaza was a small square surrounded by buildings, with the twin churches on opposing sides, the squat concrete buildings glowering at each other.

  Though Ryan still couldn't remember where the town was, or its name, he could visualize the open space, with an iron-railed fence along two sides and a tumbledown cupola where brass bands might have played on those long-gone, sunny predark Sunday afternoons.

  He rubbed his hands together. "Cold," he whispered.

  The sun was a watery blur of sickly yellow, dipping behind the range of snow-topped peaks to the west.

  Shadows were lengthening across the silent settlement. Somewhere Ryan could just catch the faint sound of a screen door banging on its hinges.

  Once he reached the corner of the plaza, he'd be able to see into the square.

  The bitter taste of decay lay flat on his tongue, and Ryan hawked and spit in the dust, trying to clear it away. The sharp noise startled half a dozen vultures, which rose heavily into the afternoon sky, from the square, leathery wings flapping, hooked beaks open, shreds of some sort of meat dangling from their jaws.

  "Bastards!" Ryan breathed, drawing the blaster, cocking the hammer with a dry click.

  Three more steps and he would be able to see into the square of the little town.

  Two more.

  He started to walk slowly back toward the main street and the warmth and security of the war wags, when his combat-tuned hearing caught a faint rustling sound, like a gentle summer breeze through a grove of aspens, coming from all around him.

  Ryan felt the short hair bristling at his nape as he looked around at the square of the dead. The dried-out bodies were moving. Some of them had been lying stretched out, while others seemed to have died curled up into a fetal position, knees huddled to bony chests.

  Now, everywhere he looked, there was a restless shifting, fingers creaking open from clenched fists, feet scratching in the frosty dust, teeth clacking in leering jaws, skulls turning blindly from side to side. Ryan drew his blaster, thumbing back the hammer. His senses screamed for him to run from the charnel sight, but his feet felt nailed to the dirt.

  Something touched his ankle and he looked down, seeing that the tiny, shrunken hands of the baby with the slit throat were plucking at his ankle. Ryan opened his mouth and started to scream.

  Chapter Four

  As the mist thickened, making it impossible to see what was happening in the mat-trans unit, the partly open door was the center of a swirling vortex of gray air, peculiarly thick, like gruel. Ryan lay unconscious, face close to the opening, one arm jammed against the door.

  The process continued.

  The side effects of the malfunctioning jump struck at everybody, but Ryan was nearest to the nodal point of the matter-transfer dischronicity and was, as a consequence, much the worst affected.

  His living nightmare was horrific, but the others all shared bizarre sense sensations.

  DEAN WAS WANDERING across a bleak and featureless moor, with every up slope coated thick in snow.

  The air was so cold that it burned his mouth and throat like living fire, and the inside of his nose was coated with sharp crystals of ice.

  He was feeling very tired, overwhelmed with the simple desire to lie down and rest for a while. The boy hadn't eaten for the better part of a week, and he could feel his backbone rubbing on his belly. The sun was nearly done, throwing his long shadow ahead of him as he stagg
ered weakly eastward.

  A tiny bird, like a sparrow, suddenly fell from the sky, landing with the softest of thumps in the snow at his feet, stricken dead by the cold.

  Dean dropped to his knees alongside the tiny corpse, picking it up in cupped hands, staring at the dark, sightless eyes. He could just feel the warmth on the feathered body.

  Closing his own eyes, the boy lifted the dead bird toward his mouth.

  THE BOWL OF RICE PUDDING was rich and creamy, dotted with plump raisins and carrying the scent of honey and cinnamon. It stood on the floor of the wooden shack, steaming in the bitter cold.