And then Krysty took two wavering steps before sinking to her knees before the bloody carcass of the mutie wolf. She had used the power of Gaia, the Earth Mother, Doc knew, a remarkable spring of power that came from the earth itself, infusing Krysty with incredible, superhuman strength for a very short period of time. The Gaia power was brief, a firework burst of energy, and, as its glow faded, it left Krysty as weak as a kitten.
Mildred was already crouching beside Krysty, concerned, checking that the remarkable redhead was all right. Beside them, the huge wolf lay still, its once proud snout now a concave mess of shattered bone.
“Thank you kindly, my dear Krysty,” Doc managed to say as he struggled back to his feet and retrieved his lion’s-head cane from the ground.
T
HE SCATTERGUN BOOMED
as J.B. launched another blast at the wolf pack that had rounded on the little clutch of buildings. The pack was wary now, having
lost several of its brethren to these lethal newcomers. A little way behind J.B., Ryan skipped backward, his SIG-Sauer blaster held before him, nearing the struggling group that had emerged from the caravan of mismatched wags.
“Everyone okay?” Ryan asked in his authoritative voice, peering over his shoulder for a snap second before turning back to the circling mutie hounds.
“We have three wounded,” someone—a young man’s voice—explained from over Ryan’s shoulder.
Jak’s familiar voice called from behind Ryan then, providing a little more information in his strangely abrupt manner of speech. “Baby and Ma, not look good.”
“Just get everyone inside, Jak,” Ryan commanded, not taking his eyes off the feral creatures before him. “They’ll be safe there.”
As he spoke, one of the wolves made a break for it, lurching forward on its wide paws, picking up speed as it rushed at the retreating group of humans. J.B. leaned over his M-4000, firing three thunderous shots at the monstrosity while Ryan unleashed a flurry of bullets at its feet, as though daring it to come closer.
The wolf turned, scampering back to the pack, its tail low. Watching the creature scramble away, a tight smile on his lips, J.B. held his ground a moment before taking a single pace forward and blasting another shot from the shotgun. The blast ripped into the creature’s back, knocking it over itself as the explosion rocked its hind legs. It struggled a moment, then got back on its feet and continued to run away, limping a little as it disappeared
among the soaked shafts of wheat. The wolves around it watched, their heads low, snarling between clenched teeth before finally turning tail and running.
J.B. and Ryan blasted off several more rounds, accompanied by Jak, who now stood at Ryan’s side. They watched as the creatures weaved through the high fields of wheat and disappeared from sight.
“Come back, reckon?” Jak asked, his heavy revolver still trained on the field where the monsters had run.
“Bastard sure of it,” Ryan growled. “We should find some cover of our own.”
Ryan turned to peer around them, giving the little group of shacks the once-over before turning his gaze down the road to where his other companions were hurrying to join them. Doc had loaned his ebony walking cane to Krysty, who was now using it to aid her progress on weakened legs. Mildred brought up the rear of the group, her ZKR 551 target pistol poised in a straight-armed grip.
“Krysty?” Ryan asked, jogging over to be at her side. “What happened?”
Krysty looked up at him between sweat-and-rain-dampened strands of her red hair, and a wonderfully innocent smile crossed her face. “Just a little bump and grind, lover, nothing to get jealous over,” she assured him with good humor, but her voice sounded weak.
Ryan shot the others a meaningful look and Doc took that as his cue.
“She called on Gaia,” Doc said. “Saved this very grateful man’s life in so doing.”
Ryan nodded. He knew the Gaia power affected his most precious companion. He knew, too, that she would come back around again, back to full health in a little
while. It just took time, and right now, standing out here waiting for another mutie wolf attack was about the least smart way to spend it. “Let’s everyone get inside,” he instructed, putting his arm around Krysty’s waist to help her across the road to the nearest wooden building.
A wooden fence stood waist-high with a gate that caught on a simple latch, the kind used to stop farm animals getting out or wildlife—like mutie wolves—getting in. Beyond that, a two-story shack waited, and piano music drifted from inside.
A bewildered goat was tethered outside the rotting wooden shack, soaked through and bleating miserably in the downpour. The words
Traid n Post
had been carved into a sign beside the building’s front door with a smaller sign below that read
Good Eaten.
Music drifted from inside as someone pounded at the keys of a badly tuned piano.
The goat bleated as the six travelers made their way past it to go inside, and Jak stopped to marvel at the sorry-looking creature. He felt an affinity for the animal as it looked up at him hopefully, its satanic red eyes matching Jak’s own, white fur and tuft of beard in imitation of Jak’s colorless skin and pure white stubble. The goat rested on a square of rough plywood, with two wheels on an axle running beneath it. Its hind legs had been removed high on the shoulder, not even the hint of a stump remaining, and Jak could see the jagged black thread lining the animal’s white fur where the amputations had been sewn closed. As Jak looked at the beast, its fur matted with the awful drizzle that was still lancing at the ground with needle-thin precision, they heard a bleating and two more goats, a nanny and her kid, came prancing around the corner. Each of them
wore a collar with a short length of rope tying one to the other, preventing them from moving comfortably without butting into each other. All three sorry creatures looked hungry.
The first animal bleated again, shaking its head from side to side as Jak turned away and followed his companions into the building. The goat scrabbled forward with its remaining forelegs, the rest of its body following on the wheeled base, until the tether line pulled taut at its neck and halted its progress. It let out another sorrowful bleat as it watched this kindred spirit disappear through the dirty, burn-streaked door.
Jak smelled the air as he entered the run-down shack and a smile touched his pale lips as he scented rich cooking spices.
The room that the companions had entered was roughly twenty feet square, encompassing the full length of the building. To one side, on a raised platform, stood the badly tuned piano, played by an attractive, dark-haired woman wearing a low-cut dress and a single incisor tooth in her open mouth.
Two young women, scantily clad and with collars at their necks, danced lethargically to the clanking tune of the piano, entertainment for the patrons of this trading post. The women, like the goats outside, were tethered together by their collars so that they could go no farther than two feet apart. Also, much like the goats, they looked hungry. Much like the dancers, the patrons seemed to be mostly disinterested, more concerned with feeding their own bellies than watching this lackluster floor show.
Tables were dotted across the room, twelve in all, and customers from all walks, young and old, sat at
them, eating and drinking, passing the evening. These were traveling men, like Ryan and his companions, just passing through on their way to pastures new. The group from the caravan had taken up a couple of larger tables to the right of the room; twelve of them in total, plus the baby. They were tending to the wounded mother and her child, bandaging the old man’s bloodied arm. The mother had a wadded bandage across her throat now, but apart from looking pale with shock, she seemed to be all right. With Ryan busy checking on Krysty’s well-being, J.B. touched his index finger to the brim of his hat in acknowledgment as he passed the group. One of them, a man in his fifties with a shaved scalp and peppering of white stubble on his chin, nodded and offered a few words of thanks, but he was drowned out by the poorly tuned piano, and, regardless, J.B. hadn’t bothered to stop and listen. The man with the shaved scalp continued to watch the companions as they made their way toward the main service counter.
A large mirror lined the far wall, overlooking a long countertop that served as bar and trading area. The counter was crowded with things for sale—fur pelts and ammunition, religious symbols and homemade lucky mascots, a writhing box of maggots that was labeled as “live bayt”—all of it presided over by a fat man sitting on a high stool, picking at his teeth with a splinter of wood. The whole lot probably didn’t amount to much of value, even out here in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee, and it was obvious that the trading post’s main trade was in food, drink and the scrawny excuse for gaudies that were currently dancing for the passing trade.
In one corner of the room, at the end of the long countertop, stood a lean-looking, skinny girl of maybe
fourteen, stirring a big metal ladle in a steaming pot as big as a bathtub. She wore her dark hair long, and her arms were bare where the burgundy sleeveless T-shirt she wore didn’t cover them. Scars were pitted down her arms, from burns and perhaps blades, it was hard to tell. An open fire cracked and spit beneath the huge pot, casting its fractious, flickering light across the room.
“Well.” Doc clapped his hands together, looking at his companions with a bright smile on his face. “Who’s up for some dinner?” He turned to Krysty, thinking that, after drawing upon the Gaia power, she would be ravenous.
The companions looked at Doc as he stroked his chin unconsciously and his eyes lost focus, seemingly in deep thought. “Though with our journeying of late, mayhap it is lunch. It can get so frightfully confusing when one is ever hopping about from place to place.”
Mildred stepped over and took the older man’s elbow, smiling up into his clear, blue eyes. “Let’s break our fast, you old fool,” she said affectionately.
Doc nodded, smiling agreeably. “Breakfast it is,” he announced before leading the way over to the countertop where the fat man continued picking at his teeth.
As Doc, Mildred and Jak stepped up to the counter, the remaining companions headed for an empty table on the farthest side of the room from the door. The table allowed a good view of the whole room, and J.B. pushed one of the wooden chairs far back until it was pressed against the wall. Once it was, he sat down on it, the brim of his fedora low as he silently scanned the room. Exhausted, Krysty wearily sat beside him while
Ryan took a seat facing him, his chair at an angle so that he might turn easily if he was required to face the room.
The patrons seemed a mismatched bunch. Some were quite clearly local farmhands, others just traveling through. There was a sense of hostility, all too familiar in the Deathlands, but it came from the raucous conversations and lewd floor show more than any specific antagonism between parties.
“Lots of ordnance in here,” J.B. said quietly, “not all of it on show.”
Beside the Armorer, Krysty was beginning to regain her usual healthy appearance, the color returning to her cheeks. Her green eyes were sifting through the weapons she could see tucked beneath the tabletops. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she decided, telling of her findings in a low mutter. “Guy left of the door looks like he has a flamer maybe.”
“No,” J.B. corrected her. “That’s a crop duster, sprays pesticide.”
With his back to the room, Ryan glanced up at the mirror behind the bar, searching for the man in question. “Would it work as a weapon?” he queried.
“Depends what’s in it,” the Armorer admitted. “A face full of bug spray could blind you, burn the skin off your face, or worse.”
“What’s worse than that?” Krysty asked, furrowing her brow.
“Put some industrial-strength shit in there, and you’d be tripping the rest of your short life, see the flesh peeling from your skull whether it was really happening or not,” J.B. explained disinterestedly, his eyes still scanning the room.
At the counter, Doc was addressing the proprietor in his rich, sonorous voice. “Your sign outside promises good eating, sir,” he began, “perhaps you would care to explain what delicacies you have to offer to a band of weary—and hungry—travelers?”
Behind the counter the round man’s tiny eyes widened at Doc’s elaborately phrased request, and he worked his spike of wood with his fingers, pulling something from his teeth, before he spoke. “We got meat,” he said, gesturing to the alcove where the teenage girl was stirring at her large pot, “fresh today and stewed up all nice and tender. That do you an’ your trav’lin’ buds?”
Doc glanced across to the girl in the alcove and nodded, scenting the air in an effort to determine what meat it was. “It most assuredly would,” Doc told the barman. “We would like six bowls of your finest stew. It smells delicious,” he added, turning to check for the approval of his companions.
The overweight barman went over to talk to the rake-thin girl at the bathtub-size cooking pot, and when Doc turned back, he was returning to his post as the girl began reaching for bowls and wiping each with a cloth before placing them in turn on the table beside her. As Doc checked through his pockets for some jack or spare ammunition that might serve as currency—nothing was more valuable in the Deathlands than a live round—the bartender gestured for him to come closer. Leaning forward, Doc bent close to the bar, looking at the bartender curiously as the fat man spoke.
“What’s up with whitey there?” the barman asked, not looking at Jak Lauren. “He a mutie? We don’t much
like serving their kind in here. Not for me, y’understand, just that the locals get sore about it and it’s liable to bring trouble.”
“No,” Doc said, shaking his head, “Jak’s as normal as you or I.” Doc considered explaining the nature of albinism but thought better of it. “He just stays out of the sun, that’s all,” Doc finished somewhat lamely.
Which wasn’t to say that they didn’t have a mutie among their band. Few people picked up on Krysty’s mutations, despite her prehensile hair being on show for all the world to see. Doc smiled to himself. In two hundred years, humankind hadn’t changed so very much. People would look past a lot if you were that rare and wonderful combination of facets—tall, striking and a woman.