Authors: James Axler
Madness filled the streets, and guns were being bought at unbelievable prices, one man trading a gasoline truck for a revolver and a box of ammunition. He ran off only minutes before the screaming mob arrived to steal the gas and ruthlessly kill the lone policeman who bravely tried to stop them. The hospitals were filled with the dying, fires raged unchecked, police were overwhelmed and the military was decimated. The rule of law was gone. It was dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle.
As a light snow fell from the stormy sky, Mayor Gordon called an emergency town meeting while the sheriff got his deputies and used their patrol cars to block the bridge. Aside from an abandoned mining road that even at the best of times required a major four-wheel drive to traverse, the Huckleberry Bridge was the only way in or out of the isolated farming community.
However, the meeting barely got started before gunshots rang out, followed by the dull thud of a distant explosion. Hurrying outside, the townsfolk paused on the snowy streets at the sight of the thick plumes of smoke rising from the direction of the bridge. Charging over on foot, they found the sheriff and his deputies dead in the street, right next to a school bus for the Central City Wildcats. The bus was full of canned food, guns, ammunition, medical supplies and a dozen dead men still wearing their prison uniforms. The cops and the convicts had died killing one another, the last man bleeding to death alone on the road in the strobing lights of the patrol cars.
Declaring martial law, Mayor Gordon impounded the bus and all of the supplies, dispatching them to the VFW hall for temporary storage. The bodies were sent to the hospital morgue. Then every small child was sent home with their mother, the men and single women standing guard on the Huckleberry River Bridge, while farmers hauled over bales of hay to form a wall across the bridge as a temporary barrier. A trucker named MacIntyre who lived in the town between hauls suggested draping the bales with barbed wire and backing them with parked cars, so that folks couldn't smash through or climb over. The mayor offered him the job of sheriff on the spot. MacIntyre agreed, hesitating for a moment before pinning the bloody badge of the fallen sheriff to his plaid shirt. Then he strapped on the gunbelt.
Reinforcing the barricade as best they could, the sheriff and the army of deputies prepared for the fight of their lives, gathering everything that could be used as a makeshift weapon: crowbars, fire axes, chainsaws and matlocks.
Dawn was just starting to lighten the eastern sky when the armada arrived, the terrified people riding in cars, taxicabs, station wags, limousines, fire trucks, police cars, motorcycles, anything that could roll. The staggering array of vehicles was covered with a bizarre assortment of possessions, as if the drivers had simply grabbed whatever was handy and tied it to the roof. One car was stuffed completely full of money, the driver behind the wheel hysterically laughing nonstop, his eyes wide with insanity.
Using a bullhorn from behind the barricade, Sheriff MacIntyre denied the outsiders access into town and was immediately shot by a crazy woman dressed in filthy rags and diamond jewelry. The wound sent him to a knee, but the sheriff blew her open like a can of spaghetti with a Remington 12-gauge. That started an all-out battle between the townsfolk and the invaders. The fight lasted for three bloody hours, and when
it was over, what remained of the invaders streamed back over the hill and out of sight.
Recovering their dead, the sheriff had the barricade taken down, and everything on the opposite side that was of any conceivable use was appropriated: cars, shoes, guns, knives and forks. Then the barricade went back up just in time as more invaders came over the hill. Once more, they were forced to retreat, but again they returned, larger, stronger and more savage than before.
Three more times the insane mob was repelled, but they kept returning, ever stronger, more wild and desperate.
Finally the sea of people broke through the barricade to find only the sheriff left alive. As they poured across the bridge, the bleeding man lowered his handgun and fired at a wooden box lying amid the dead and the dying.
The dynamite was only farming grade, sixty proof, designed for blowing up tree stumps and cracking boulders. But the one hundred sticks obliterated the Huckleberry River Bridge, along with all of the invaders. When the smoke cleared, the carnage spread for over half a mile.
Working fast, the mayor directed the people of Cascade to erect a new barricade on their side of the gorge, an orderly array of cars and trucks all facing the destroyed bridge as if trying to get across. The corpses of the people from the hospital morgue were placed behind the steering wheels. Next, every light in town was turned off, piles of rubbish were set on fire at strategic locations and the townsfolk waited, praying to God and loading their rifles.
Only a few hours later, more dying strangers arrived, saw the destroyed bridge, the cars of dead people on the other side of the deep gorge and turned away, too tired and hungry to do anything but keep running toward some imaginary salvation.
That evening the first of the ash storms began, the black flakes covering the wintry landscape and turning clean white snow into a dense gray mud. But that only served to aid the
illusion, making Cascade seem as desolate and ruined as every place else. As the sky darkened and incredible storms filled the heavens, the townsfolk stayed hidden for months, moving only when absolutely necessary. Eventually, there were no more survivors from the big cities, and the cleaning began, a systematic purge to remove every trace of the town's existence from anybody standing on the Edge of the World.
Billboards and street signs were removed, then the curving road itself torn to pieces, carried away by hand in wheelbarrows. Telephone poles were cut down, water towers lowered, the tower for the radio station disassembled, and the high-tension power lines from the dam buried underground. Soon, there was nothing visible past the dense pine tree forest.
Preparing for what was coming, the people of Cascade quickly built greenhouses and planted crops just in time before the brutal arrival of the long nuclear winter, and any further work had to be suspended for years until the world began to have seasons once more.
During the decades of darkness, an occasional straggler would wander into Cascade from the mountain trails. If the newcomer possessed useful skills, such as bricklaying or plumbing, or was a healthy woman, he or she was allowed to stay; if not, the person was summarily executed. The people of Cascade were not soldiers, and the town was not a fortress. They simply could not stop the never-ending tidal wave of humanity blindly streaming across the countryside. That was flat-out impossible. But they could hide, and let the starving thousands of diseased killers go elsewhere to rape and loot other towns on their way to a slow, painful death by radiation poisoning.
Over time, the townsfolk learned a new way of life, keeping careful books on who married whom to avoid any potentially devastating effects of inbreeding. The old coal mine was reopened to produce coal oil for the lamps and fertilizer for the greenhouses. Then the exhausted tunnels were painstak
ingly expanded into subterranean workshops to produce fuel, tools, medicine and weapons. Trapping became prevalent, and people started wearing a lot of fur and leather. Children were taught to recycle everything, and elderly people trapped pigeons to raise them in coops for the nitrogen-rich waste products that could easily be converted into black powder and eventually a crude form of gunpowder.
To save precious ammunition, folks became good shots with crossbows, and armed guards walked the city streets at night to keep a careful watch for any of the winged muties that sometimes made it across the gorge, horrible, twisted things, living nightmares that flew fast and killed even faster.
Life became harder, tougher and more crude. Belt knives became as commonplace as wristwatches had been before the war, boots replaced sneakers and every home had a fully functioning fireplace out of sheer necessity.
However, the schools remained open, and when the old textbooks began to wear out, the town elders found a way to make paper and ink, and new editions were crudely printed. There were still organized baseball games, church socials, community theater, a Fourth of July picnic and a winter pageant decorated with both menorahs and a manger. Everybody used soap, everybody could read, there hadn't been a rape in over a century, and most folks died in their beds of old age.
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“T
O DIE IN BED
, that alone is worth killing for,” the mayor muttered, trying to steel herself for the coming task. Thomas Paine once said that the tree of liberty needed to be watered with the blood of patriots now and then. True words, indeed. If this was her day, so be it. That was part of her job as the mayor of the town.
Pulling out her Cascade Deluxe, the woman dutifully checked the load in the 9-shot cylinder, then closed it with a
practiced snap of her wrist. They had to be ready. Everybody in town had to be ready for whatever was coming. A convoy was on the way!
All too soon, it would be time for the Harvest.
The air was thick and heavy above the polluted lake, the water almost gelatinous with oily waves lapping the barren shoreline. Scattered among the pitted rocks were animals skeletons, mostly birds fallen from the sky, and irregular piles of rust that may have once been machinery of some kind, but at this point that was purely speculation.
As the UCV rolled along, the companions covered their mouths with handkerchiefs in an automatic gesture, in spite of the fact that at the first burning whiff the vehicle had slammed shut every air vent and window. There was no smell of the lake, but being this close to the toxic chems made the companions' skin itch anyway. There were no animals in sight, no birds or stingwings in the sky, no signs of life. There was only the horrid lake and the distant glow of a hot rad pit behind a low mountain range. It was as if they were the last humans alive.
“Yeah, it's a bomb,” J.B. said, lowering his knife. The cut he had just made in the cushion from the bottom of the duffel bag showed a small radio receiver wired to two sticks of dynamite. “Clever little thing, I must say.”
“Why they try boobie?” Jak demanded from behind his mask.
“I'd guess the bomb was just insurance,” J.B. said, detaching the wires and tucking the dynamite into his munitions bag. “In case we tried to use the brass on them to get more.” Rolling down the window, he tossed away the cushion. It sailed off to land in a puddle and sink from sight.
“Fragging Roberto,” Jak growled. “No, was probably Jessica. From what told, she triple hard.” The implied insult angered the youth, then he remembered a line from some oldie play that Doc liked to quote about smiling villains. True enough. A show of teeth usually only meant that the other fellow was getting ready to bite.
“Can't really blame them for taking precautions,” Mildred said from behind the wheel.
“I can,” Ryan said, adjusting the cloth over his face. “A trader is no damn good if he can't tell who to trust.”
“Amen to that, brother,” J.B. said. “I just wish that we could test the Fifty. Until we fire off some of that brass, we'd better not count on it working.”
“But we did fire off a round,” Krysty said, strips of fabric wrapped tight around her mouth. “Well, we fired off one round, but it worked.” She paused. “Unless you think a couple of cartridges might be live and the rest dummies filled with dirt.”
“It's unlikely,” Ryan admitted. “A trader only does business on the rep of his word. Then again, he might consider me a special case.”
“I also opened the last cartridge on each belt,” J.B. added. “It was filled with silvery powder, not crude black powder, or the dull gray of gunpowder, and when I touched it with a match, the stuff flashed, but there was no smoke.”
“Silvery and smokeless,” Ryan mused. “That sounds like predark military propellant, all right. I half expected them to give us black powder or old cordite.”
“What about the primers?” Mildred asked.
“Primers seemed okay. I tossed the empty brass into a campfire, and they cooked off after a couple of moments,” J.B. replied succinctly. “As near as I can tell, that brass is live.”
Then the Armorer frowned. “Only thing I'm worried about is this remote control. Being able to fire the Fifty from inside the vehicle is a sweet deal, but there's no way of telling if the
damn sights are still aligned. We could aim for a stickie and easily end up shooting nothing but sky.”
“Guess we'll find out eventually,” Ryan replied philosophically. “You never have to wait in a convoy before something tries for a jack.”
“You got that right, old buddy.”
Slowly leaving the rocky shore of the toxic lake behind, the UCV reached a wide expanse of white soil, the heavy tires leaving wide depressions in the ground. The soft material wasn't sand, or even ash, but simply dead earth as devoid of life as the surface of the moon. The deadly fumes wafting off the lake apparently had a considerable reach, as the sterile zone extended for hundreds of yards, only slowly darkening to a normal color, and then tiny tufts of grass appeared like tropical islands in a smooth black sea.
“Egad, a blind man could follow this Brobdingnagian trail!” Doc snorted in disdain. There had been tree branches tied behind the war wag to wipe out their tracks, but those had rotted away shortly after approaching the putrid lake. Even the rope was gone, the tattered remains falling away as loose, pale fibers.
“Nothing we can do about it,” Mildred replied with a shrug. “We could go around, but then we'd lose too much time.”
“Think droids follow?” Jak asked.
“Nothing on the radar,” Krysty replied. “We're fine.”
“As you say, dear lady,” Doc acquiesced, but he kept looking behind them as if expecting the droids to appear over the horizon at any moment.
A few miles later, a dull thumping could be heard in the distance, sort of like cannon fire. Then the companions spotted white plumes briefly appearing above the treetops, and smiled in relief as they came upon the hot water geysers.
Proceeding through the explosive array, the urban combat vehicle was hit several times by the spray. However, when they
emerged from the steaming field, the outer chassis was sparkling clean.
“Sanitized for your protection!” Mildred chuckled in delight.
The downfall created a multitude of rainbows until even the black and orange storm clouds overhead seemed somehow beautiful.
“Magnificent! Hell and heaven side by side!” Doc exclaimed. “If the symmetry was any more perfect, I do believe I might have cried.”
“Just water,” Jak sniffed, but it was clearly bravado.
“Plus, they're kind of small,” Mildred added.
“Small or not, there are hundreds of them,” Krysty added. “And combined, they are breathtaking. I'm surprised that Roberto didn't mention it.”
“Hell of a landmark,” Jak agreed.
“Mebbe he didn't know it was here,” Ryan said gruffly, rubbing his jaw. “Which means that either we're on a wild-mutie chase to nowhere, or this is brand new.”
“I think it's new,” J.B. said, watching one of the smaller geysers sputter and die, the ground then collapsing into the steamy hole. “Probably be gone by next week.”
“Sic transit gloria mundi,”
Doc said, bowing his head respectfully. “Thus passes the beauty of the world.”
“Wish I had a camera.” Mildred sighed, her hand touching the journal in her med kit. Recently she had started making notes about anything useful or interesting the companions discovered in their travels. The rainbow garden was magnificent, but transitory, a very brief flicker of beauty in a cold, dark expanse.
Following the runoff stream from the hot water geysers, Mildred drove the UCV into a growing wilderness of bushes and trees. Soon they had to leave the forest, the trees too densely packed for the wag to drive through. Straddling the waterway, the vehicle trundled along, the six tires throwing back a misty spray that masked the steaming field of rainbows.
As the external temperature dropped, the vents opened by themselves, admitting a wealth of cool air carrying the rich smell of green plants. Bushes laden with berries covered both shores, and the trees were heavy with ripe fruit, the branches bowing down to nearly touch the ground.
“Bear!” Jak cried in delight, grabbing a recently cleaned M-16 rapidfire and working the arming bolt. “Stop and I get dinner!”
“And then we'd have to skin it, cut out steaks, make a campfire and cook the bastard,” Ryan replied gruffly, the disappointment thick in his voice. “Sorry, we can't spare the hours.”
“But bear in apple orchard!” Jak admonished, rubbing his stomach. The backpacks they'd rescued from the redoubt had been full of MRE packs, but each Mylar envelope had been riddled with tiny corrosion holes, the dehydrated food as inedible as dung.
“And a bear in an orchard is good?” Mildred asked over a shoulder, dodging a small boulder in the stream.
The teenager scowled in disbelief. “Not have bear and apple stew?” He snorted. “Thought came from civilized time!”
“So did I, once,” Mildred said with a sigh, shifting gears.
The creek flowed to a delta, where it joined over waterways to become a shallow river, clear water slow and stately. The rad counters read clean, and fish could be seen swimming in the shallows, along with crabs and some black eels.
Moving onto a grassy bank, the companions soon saw signs of a nearby ville: a torn fishing net tangled in the branches of a submerged rock, a crude attempt at plowing a field, a bloody rope dangling from a tree limb where a deer or some other animal had been gutted. Then, following a gentle curve, there was Newton.
Low tree stumps dotted the ground for a hundred feet before reaching the outer wall, clear ground for the people inside to easily pick off invaders. There was a path to the front
gate, but it curved several times before reaching the entrance. Obviously it was designed to slow an enemy charge, making it easier for the sec men to aim.
Unless you were stupe enough to go over the tree stumps, Ryan noted. He felt certain the field was filled with pits, traps and buried explosive charges.
The wall itself was the usual mixture of red bricks, cinder-blocks, sidewalk slabs, logs and concrete, with large boulders being used as sturdy cornerstones. Smart move. The top of the barrier was studded with sharp sticks, broken glass and a few rusty strands of barbed wire. The gate was more impressive, overlapping sheets of metal from whatever could be foundâstop signs, billboards, car hoods, manhole coversâ¦
The hodgepodge was dented in numerous places and streaked with the telltale gray of countless ricochets. Clearly, the imposing barrier had withstood numerous attacks. Several wooden guard towers stood tall behind the wall, in the distance fluttered a flag of murky colors and off to the side was a tall gallows, the dangling noose empty. It was a message any outlander could easily understand.
“Good wall,” J.B. said in admiration. “No sign of cannons, but I'll bet it'd be a real bitch to get through that gate.”
“Unfortunately, there's no sign of Roberto,” Ryan said, looking around. There were no tracks in the ground, oil stains, or any other indications that a wag had been here recently.
Krysty frowned. “Could we have gotten here first?”
“If we did, he must have been jacked somewhere along the way,” Ryan said, pulling his blaster to checked the clip. “We'll get some food and wait until dark, but after that we'll go hunting for them.”
“Gave word,” Jak agreed. “We part convoy. They lost, we find.”
“A noble sentiment,” Doc said. “However, I truly cannot imagine that anybody could deter those three juggernauts.”
“Anybody can be taken,” Ryan said coldly, “if you want them bad enough.”
Braking the war wag a respectful distance from the front gate, Mildred heard the clang of an alarm bell, and a dozen sec men appeared along the top of the wall, armed with axes, blasters and crossbows. Then a small door in the gate opened briefly, and some sec men slipped through. Their clothing was mismatched, predark fabrics, new leather and crude woven material, but all of it had been dyed a smooth uniform black. Plus, every one of them wore a blaster on his belt, and had a longblaster slung across his back. Ryan grunted at the sight. This was a rich ville. It had to do a lot of business with traders.
Keeping in a tight group, the sec men walked toward the war wag and stopped halfway. Understanding the procedure, Ryan and J.B. climbed out of the UCV and ambled over to meet them on neutral ground, within the range of everybody's blasters.
“Hell of a wag you got there, outlander,” a bald sec man said as a greeting. “That be some kind of a tank?”
“No, just something we whittled out of a tree,” Ryan joked, and was rewarded with several smiles. “Any chance Roberto the Trader is here yet? We were supposed to meet with him at moonrise, but arrived early.”
“Not by much,” a sec woman said, glancing at the darkening sky.
“You part of his convoy?” the sergeant asked. “Never saw you folks before, and sure as shit never saw anything like that wag!” He could not take his sight away from a huge metal fork resting on top of the machine. Clearly, it was for ramming other wags. And possibly a ville gate.
“We're newbies,” Ryan replied.
“Lucky number four,” J.B. added.
That made the sergeant hesitate. It was the right number, but these could be coldhearts who had watched Roberto arrive
at the ville from the bushes. “Hey, you ever met his wife?” he asked. “Black dust, that woman is fat!”
“Sorry, Roberto isn't married,” Ryan said calmly. “His second in command is Jessica, and she's small enough to stuff in your hip pocket.”
“But meaner than a gator with a toothache,” J.B. added. “I swear that woman was born to chew steel.”
“Yeah, you know Colt, all right.” The sergeant chuckled, somewhat easing his stance. “Come on inside, and welcome to Newton.”
As the group of sec men started back toward the ville, Ryan saw the sergeant make a complex hand gesture to the wall guards, and they lowered their weapons. Suspicious folks. He had a feeling he was going to like these people.