“Far be it from me to be the one who wishes to cast a pall of gloom over the proceedings, but I have a feeling that all is not well… Indeed, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.”
“Where the hell is Denmark?” J.B. queried, his brow furrowed.
“Forgive me, John Barrymore, I quote from an old, old play, something from the days before the nukecaust, and something that I forget you would have little or no knowledge of. It merely means that I feel a distinct chill in the air, and one that has little to do with the weather.” Doc smiled sadly, unable to suppress a little shiver as he spoke, almost as if to emphasize his point.
For now it was morning, and the sun blazed in a sky momentarily free of chem clouds or skittering rain, dappling through the leaves of the trees and swamp plants that grew taller and provided a canopy to the swamp. It was already warm, despite the fact that the sun had only been up for a couple of hours, and before midday it would be sweltering.
But, as Doc said, the chill had little to do with the weather. He and J.B. had drawn last watch, which had enabled them to get an unbroken rest before having to rise and stand guard over their companions. Ryan had wanted it that way. He knew that the old man had suffered more than the others from the depredations of the journey, and was in dire need of an uninterrupted sleep. J.B. was the obvious choice to stand sentry with Doc, and so the Armorer had lucked out and also gained an unbroken rest.
However, as the two men stood a little distance from the camp, watching the less nocturnal reptile, bird and mammal life of the swamp begin to stir and go about the business of staying alive, J.B. was regretting standing sentry with the scholar. The old man was inclined to go off on strange tangents, and say bizarre things, as his life had left his mind fragile and apt to wander from sense; yet there was nothing wrong with his intelligence, and a Doc Tanner in full possession of his faculties was a fearsomely intelligent and sharp man, with an ability to put his finger on the nub of any problem. Even if his words sometimes made that completely incomprehensible.
“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, Doc, then I agree with you.”
“And what, pray tell, do you think I may be saying?” the old man asked with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
“Doc, this isn’t the time to be funny,” J.B. muttered, not wanting their exchange overheard until he was sure he knew what Doc meant—as much to avoid his own embarrassment as anything else.
“Very well, John Barrymore, if you wish me to articulate in a more concise—and, indeed, a less verbose, though one would take umbrage at the very notion that one was as such—manner, then I shall. There is an air of gloom that hangs like a shroud over this swamp. It weighs down upon us, and has since we landed. It has nothing to do with the manner in which we arrived, and nothing to do with the chilling of our newfound companion, though, to be truthful, that was regrettable. No,” he emphasized with a wagging finger and a brief nod of the head, “it has nothing to do with our own experiences, though I would wager that they have not helped. It’s all around us. The creatures seem subdued and afraid, scuttling in shadows. Tell me, the last time we were in such a land, did we not fall prey to attack from hunting animals? Where are they now? And as for people… Swampies you would expect to be oblivious. They are little more that brainless muties who have only their basic motor functions. But where are the people? Not only have we seen nothing in the way of hunting parties, but we have seen little sign that there have been any around. Consider this—have we seen any signs of snares or traps? Have we seen any corpses or partial corpses that would indicate hunting? And those very creatures who have ignored us thus far, have they shown any sign of fear? No, sir, they have shown nothing. There is something very wrong and it ails my spirit as it ails theirs. I have nothing to prove this but a great sense of foreboding, but…” He trailed off, spreading his hands, palms up, and shrugged with a despairing inability to articulate his malaise.
J.B. had nothing to say to that. All the things that had been bothering him had been voiced by Doc. The lack of human habitation, or even signs of it, was something that was a temporary bonus. They were all exhausted, their journey from the redoubt being nothing but several days of constant, unrelenting hardship, so in many ways the lack of human opposition was some kind of respite. And yet, they knew from previous experience that this was an area of habitation, and so that very lack was also a sign that greater danger lay ahead. A greater danger into which they were marching, with no way of knowing what they might face.
“Doc, I reckon we’re all thinking this,” he said finally. “But we don’t really have much choice but to go on.”
Doc sighed. “My dear John Barrymore, I am only too well aware of this. And of the need for us to be ever more vigilant. But I am sorely worried by this one thing. If we have no knowledge of that for which we must be vigilant, how can we know that we have seen it? The dangers may not be apparent until we are already in the middle of them. For all we know—”
“We may be right now,” J.B. finished for him.
Doc merely nodded. There was nothing more to say, and their watch was broken by the sounds of the others stirring in the early morning, as the warmth of the sun penetrated the depths of the swamp.
Returning to the main camp, Doc and J.B. elected by unspoken mutual consent to say nothing of their conversation at this juncture. They were both pretty sure that it was little more than what everyone else had been thinking, particularly now that they had the time to stop and consider. Prior to this, the constant drive to get out of trouble and attain a degree of safety had driven all else from their minds. But to say something and spark an unease that may not otherwise be at the surface could cause frazzled nerve endings to become even more stretched and liable to snap.
Best to see what would happen.
Besides which, it seemed as though Doc and J.B. hadn’t been the only ones to voice their fears in the dark watches. There was a subdued atmosphere in the camp as they broke their fast on self-heats, taking advantage of the ease of the supplies rather than waste energy at this point by trying to hunt. The food tasted as foul as always, but it had nutrients, and although a rabbit or a lizard would have tasted better cooked over a naked flame, none had the inclination to waste precious energy on trying to hunt down enough to fill their hunger.
They drank the last of the bottled water, and supplies from their own canteens, knowing that now they would have to find nonbrackish water in the swamp. To counter the hardship of the past few days, they also swallowed salt tablets that Mildred distributed among them. There were few left after their trek through the desert, but she gambled on the hope that they wouldn’t be needing any for some time now that they were in the swamp.
The truth was that they were all being a little more reckless with their supplies than was usual. In a sense, it was as though they no longer—at least, at this moment—cared.
Each one of them ached in body and mind. Since their mat-trans jump had landed them in an airless redoubt, they had done little except battle elements and people. There had been no respite, no chance to recoup energies or to rest up. No one could remember the last time they had been able to sleep relatively peacefully, and each had taken a battering in combat that hadn’t been given the chance to heal. The cuts they had received from the fisherfolk had also taken their toll. Mildred carried some antiseptic cream among her looted med supplies, but not enough to fully treat all the cuts on every one of the companions. Some had become infected, and not a single one of them wasn’t carrying at least a low-level fever and infection.
Their reflexes had been blunted, and although they had still been strong enough to battle and win against the swampies, it had been harder than, in truth, it should have been. How much longer could they go without some kind of proper rest? How many more firefights before their fatigued reflexes and responses let them down?
That knowledge, combined with the atmosphere that hung over the swamp, was like a cloud that they carried with them. There was little discussion over their unsavory meal, as none wished to be the one who spread despondency. And yet they all knew how each other was feeling.
None more so than Jak. When he had joined the companions, longer ago than he could think of, he had never expected to see his homeland again. And yet here he was: with a sense of impending danger that was weighing heavily on his shoulders.
When they had finished, they broke camp and set off in the direction of West Lowellton, on the edge of Lafayette, not knowing what they would find.
Despite their weariness—something that now seemed to infuse every bone and muscle—they stayed triple red on their trek. Yet there was nothing to give shape or substance to the feeling that hung over the swamp. It was an uneventful journey through the swamp, hacking past the swamp plants and the trees, treading carefully to avoid the patches of treacherous quicksand and the foot-rotting puddles of stale and stinking water, trying to keep on solid and dry ground.
They made rapid progress through the swamp, finding nothing to impede their progress, and before the sun had reached its height in the still-clear sky above them, blazing through the cover of the foliage to raise mists of humid swamp water that hung in the still air around them like wreaths, they found that they had reached the area where the swamp had been hacked back by the developers of the twentieth century, and man had sought to conquer the elements and colonize.
Despite the gap between the nukecaust and the now, the swamp had been unable to gain back much of the ground. The survivors who still used the surviving shells of the preskydark world had made sure of that.
“Keep it close, and keep it frosty,” Ryan muttered—as much for himself as for the others—as they broke the cover of the swamp and began to encroach on the remains of West Lowellton.
Keeping in formation, and moving slowly from the cover of one building to another, Ryan taking the lead and scouting a safe location before the others followed in single file, each waiting until the other was safe before continuing the movement, they made rapid progress.
From what they could recall of their previous visit, the outskirts of the suburb were mostly deserted, marked out into territory by graffiti tags. Back then, the main baron in these parts was named Tourment, and he ruled with an iron hand. A giant of a man, he had a sec force to match his own personality, and yet he had been unable to subdue the locals led by Jak’s father, who the baron had chilled. It was perhaps this severing of ties that had led to Jak wanting to join them on their journey, and leave the remaining people to build their own ville.
West Lowellton was Cajun territory, and anything outside had been Tourment’s, with this area the buffer zone, and a combat assault course.
But now it was silent. Like the grave, though none wanted to voice that. There was no sign of any life at all—even if the Cajuns had been able to move from their self-imposed exile and back toward the area where Tourment had previously held sway—the lands from which he had driven them—there should still be some signs of life here. There was the old movie house where they had avidly watched the few remnants of old celluloid that had survived the nuclear winter. Surely they wouldn’t have deserted that?
As they became more and more sure that the area was deserted, so Ryan opted to abandon the formation they had used thus far.
“Jak, you know this better than anyone. Want to take a look around then report back?” the one-eyed man asked. He knew that Jak had an intimate knowledge of the suburb, and would be able to scout quickly and safely before reporting back. It would also give the others a chance to rest and calm frayed nerves. Jak was the hardest, the most difficult to rattle: that was another reason Ryan asked him. But he was aware that the albino had been through the same as the rest of the them, which was why he gave him the option to refuse.
Jak was quick to take up Ryan on his offer. He was frustrated at their rate of progress. It took time to get six people from the cover of one building to another. One man on his own could move with a much greater speed. Especially if that man had an intimate knowledge of the area. And he wanted to get on his own. Strange and conflicting feelings ran through the albino’s mind and heart. Part of him wanted the people he had left behind to have made something of the dreams he and his father had shared with them, yet Jak had known so much darkness and despair in his life that he very much doubted this to be the case.
The atmosphere hanging over the swamp had extended into the suburb. Something was amiss. And the buildings and streets had the feel of a place that had been empty for a long time. Jak knew what emptiness felt like, had known it since his wife and daughter, and the homestead he had fought so hard to establish, had been snatched from him by the fates. Something had happened here that had emptied the suburb, and emptied the swamp.
What it could be, he had no idea: equally, he had no idea if it was something that the companions would be up to fighting right now.
Even if it came for them, rather than the other way around.
All these thoughts passed through Jak’s mind while he made his recce. Not on a conscious level, but lurking beneath the surface. Consciously he was taking in what had happened to the suburb—something pretty big.
The most obvious sign was the old Holiday Inn that the companions had first scouted on their previous visit. That was before they had met Jak, and he knew the old hotel as something that his people had avoided. There was nothing much to loot there, and the rooms had been filled with preskydark corpses, some mummified and preserved as grim markers of history. But it had been standing, almost untouched by the nukecaust, a marker to the world that had been left behind.
Now, there was nothing more than rubble, heaped high in the middle of a couple of outer walls that stood precariously, crumbling slowly in the oppressive humidity of the suburb. Baron Tourment and his sec force had never considered this building a target, knowing that the locals stayed clear of it; but someone else obviously had it marked down as a target. Or perhaps, more ominously, it had been the scene of a desperate last stand.
Taking care to check for any signs of the ruined building being watched, Jak made his way across to the rubble. It had been this way for some time, and as he searched he became aware of one odd fact—there was no sign of any corpses ever having lain here. They had either been carefully extracted or the building had been empty when it was razed. Which only led to more questions. Why shoot the hell out of an empty building? And if it hadn’t been empty, then for what sinister purpose would the corpses be removed?
The atmosphere around the suburb took on a sharper, more dangerous air. Jak’s sense of danger, honed by his hunting skills, was screaming at him. Not right here, right now, but close by…something they could easily stumble into if they weren’t careful.
Moving with more speed and urgency than before, Jak completed his recce and returned to the area where the companions waited for him. As he expected, there were no people—living or dead—but plenty of indication that this had been a combat zone to a far greater degree than in his time. The farther he went in, the more evidence of blasterfire pitting the walls of the buildings, the more of those walls had been demolished by high-explosive shells or grens. The air was dead, with no remaining scent of cordite, plas ex, or the stench of blood and death. This hadn’t happened recently, but whatever had caused it had won the conflict, and wouldn’t be far away.
Jak paused, controlling his breathing so that it was slow and shallow, cutting out as much extraneous noise and distraction as he could: the rest was silence. No one had been in this suburb for a very long time
Jak slipped back through the rubble toward the point where he had left the others. He took little care, knowing that he was unobserved and that speed was now the key. There was a kind of decay about the area. To stay here too long would be bad for the soul. Jak had never been a great believer in such concepts, and had never held them paramount, yet he could feel something—a kind of sloth and despair—gnawing at him. It was as though everyone here had given up hope. Did he feel this because it was that tangible? Or was it partly because these had been his kin, and the thought of them simply giving up and being blasted to oblivion was too hurtful?
It didn’t matter, not in the end. What mattered was that Jak get back to his companions, give them the lowdown, then get the hell out. Maybe it was time to head for the secret redoubt, see if they could land somewhere other than this empty shell. Anywhere would be better than this…
J.B. WAS KEEPING WATCH, and he was surprised to see Jak moving freely and swiftly in the open.
“Ryan, Jak’s coming. This place must be more chilled than a bunch of stickies after we’ve been through them.”
Ryan joined the Armorer. “Guess we can relax a little,” he said to the others. “Looks like the place is empty.”
His suspicions were confirmed when Jak briefed them about the state of the buildings and the complete lack of life that he had found. “Must be big firefight, then everyone buy farm or move on,” he finished.
“Yeah, or got moved on,” Mildred mused. “Something with that much firepower wouldn’t just leave them alone.”
“Not our problem,” Ryan cut in quickly. “Sounds like it was some time back. Just putting the pieces together over what happened could be hard enough, let alone chasing it down.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Mildred replied with a shake of the head. “Look at it this way—something with that much armory is gonna be a strong force in these parts. Some baron who wants to stamp his authority—”
“Never met one who didn’t,” J.B. interrupted.
“Yeah, exactly. So how come we haven’t see anything of any wandering sec? How come there’s no sign of life at all?”
“I hate to raise the notion, as it is fearful in the extreme, but I wonder that it has not occurred to you, dear Doctor,” Doc began in his long-winded manner.
“Jeez, cut to the chase, Doc,” Mildred muttered. “Very well,” the old man said with a wry smile. “I was thinking of it purely in this way. To cause so much damage suggests a good stock of preskydark weaponry. Correct?”
He waited for an answer.
J.B. nodded. “Yeah, sure—and the point is…?”
“The point, my dear John Barrymore, is that we are assuming this weaponry is purely in the form of blasters and explosives. But for such a firepower, the baron would have to have traded or discovered an extremely high-grade quality of armory. Would you not say so, my dear sir?”
Once again, J.B. agreed. “By the sound of it, Doc. And we know that’s likely, if not usual.”
“Exactly. Therefore, I find it not beyond the bounds of possibility that such a baron could also have chemical and germ warfare weaponry in that armory…a bunch of bugs, my dear friends, that could wipe out all human life in the area.”
“Great, cheer us up why don’t you, Doc?” Krysty muttered. “Are you saying that we could be in line for the big chill ourselves, just by being here? And what about the swampies, and the other wildlife that we’ve seen and heard?”
Doc shook his head sadly. “The whitecoats were swine of an extremely high order, though I do fear that such a comment is a slur on the noble swine. Do you so soon forget the minions of Bob and Enid?
“Swampies are muties, and as such their systems may in some way be immune. I know for a fact that the whitecoats had developed many strains of virus that would attack only human beings, leaving all else alone. Perhaps that is what has happened here. And it may have been long enough ago for it to have no effect on us… Indeed, it could be that those swampies we encountered were the first to venture into this land after being driven out by the chilling. I am, of course, merely speculating.”
“You are, of course, scaring the living crap out of us.” Mildred spit. “You could be right, but we don’t know. Looking at us, we’ve been walking through this for a couple of days, more or less, and we don’t seem to be any the worse for it. What problems we do have are down to fatigue and infection from cuts. It’s a hypothesis, but one we shouldn’t take too much notice of…”
Doc’s brow furrowed. “My dear Doctor, the last thing I would wish to do was spread alarm and despondency. That was not my aim, I merely—”
Mildred stayed him with a raised hand. “Can it, Doc. I guess we all know that, but it doesn’t make it any better.”
The old man lapsed into silence, and Ryan took a look at his people. Doc’s words had caused some doubts among them, he could see that in their faces. There was only one course of action.
“Fuck this, people. We’re about as much use here as dickless man in a gaudy house. We need to move out and make our way to that old redoubt. Sooner we get away from here, the better.”
The ghost of a smile flickered across Jak’s scarred white visage. Ryan had echoed his own thoughts, and the albino had his own reasons for wanting to move on.
J.B. took a reading from his minisextant and that, combined with their recollections from their previous visit to West Lowellton, determined the direction in which they would strike out for the redoubt.
They began their march, knowing also from their last visit that they had a good distance to cover. It was past the middle of the day, well into the afternoon, and it seemed to Ryan that they would have another three or four hours before the dusk fell and made setting up camp necessary.
Each of them was wrapped in his or her own thoughts as they traveled, and there was little discussion. They fell into the usual pattern, with Ryan taking lead, J.B. covering the rear, and Doc sandwiched between Krysty and Jak. As the most vulnerable, he as always centered for his own safety. It was also the least vulnerable position for the rest of the chain should there be an attack. Not that they were expecting anything: the swamp seemed dead of all except the smallest of wildlife.
Ryan suddenly threw up his hand to halt them.
“Incoming,” he whispered. “Over to the left.”
“Swampies,” Jak muttered. ‘Can smell ’em.”
In the midst of the swamp, it was hard to find cover that didn’t entail getting bogged down in mud and stagnant pools. And there was no time for them to take the high ground of trees. They had to stand their ground and fight as soon as they saw the enemy.
In truth, they could hear them long before they became visible. A distant crashing through the everglades became louder as the swampies drew near.
“Holy shit,” Mildred breathed, “how many of the fuckers are there?”
It was a good question. The amount of noise they were making suggested that there might be an army of the muties making their way through the swamp. Blasters were leveled. Ryan held the Steyr as his main option, and J.B. opted for the M-4000 over the mini-Uzi, figuring that a scattergun approach would be of more immediate benefit than the tight arc of SMG fire. As for the others, they held their handblasters, knowing that they would have to make every shot count.
The first of the creatures crashed through the undergrowth, flattening the plants, splashing sprays of pungent water from long undisturbed puddles of mud. They were dull, blank-eyed, and seemed to be operating on a kind of blind instinct that was guiding them to the companions. The first of the swampies were male, and of varying heights and weights. The things they all had in common were their pockmarked and sore-covered skin, their tattered and stained clothing, and the antique and badly maintained blasters they carried, mostly old rifles that were Lee Enfield .303s stolen from a trader’s stock before he and his crew had been eaten.
They were moving quickly for swampies, but it was still slow enough for the companions to take a good aim to try to hit them with shots that would matter. Every shell would count in this instance, where there were no second chances and the majority of the hardware consisted of single-shot pistols.
They fired in relay, leaving space to cover one another when the time came to reload their blasters, some having to reload more than others. Doc was able to cause some real damage and take out two swampies with the shot chamber of the LeMat, and then to hit another—this one a squat, fat woman with darkly curling hair and an evil leer helped by a scar across her top lip—square in the forehead with the ball chamber. Yet he had to take longer out of the firing line to reload, no matter how quickly he moved, because of the very nature of the LeMat.
Mildred, Krysty and Jak took careful aim for the head, as that was the only sure way of halting the swampies with one shot. A miss risked that creature gaining ground on them. Mildred’s ZKR drilled neat holes in the foreheads of her targets, not a single of her shots going astray as she clicked into the kind of target-shooting mode that had won her medals in competition before she was cryogenically frozen. These were just a different kind of target, and she found that if she stopped thinking of the danger, and approached them solely as targets, it helped to ice her nerve and her trigger finger.
Jak’s .357 Magnum Colt Python wasn’t as accurate, but then it didn’t have to be. The handblaster was heavy enough to rip open the skulls of its victims and spread their gray matter across the foliage and the other swampies that came behind, even if the shot wasn’t dead center. Krysty’s Smith & Wesson Model 640 was a .38, and not as powerful. Nonetheless, at that kind of range it was enough to work even if she failed to get every single shot dead center.
Ryan’s Steyr was picking them off at long distance, leaving those nearer for his compatriots to blast, specifically J.B. The M-4000 was ripping through the swampies, the Armorer opting for body shots as he knew that the rounds of barbed metal fléchettes from the Smith & Wesson blaster would shred any internal organs they hit—whether they were single, double, or even treble. There would be little left but blood and jellied flesh by the time his blaster had finished with them.
The swampies tried to return fire, but the carnage around them made it hard for them to fire accurately. They were easily confused, and as the air was filled with deafening blasts, piercing screams, and the stench of charred and chilled flesh, it was hard for them to focus enough to really mount any kind of blaster attack. Instead, in their confusion, they kept coming, wave after wave.
Although the companions had been under no return fire, they were still being forced back. The gaps in firing where reloading had to take place gave the swampies moments of time to move forward, and the waves of muties began to drive them back by sheer force.
It was impossible to tell how many there were. They had to have found themselves close to a swampie settlement, for there were far too many of them for a hunting party. Whatever the reason, all that mattered was that they were being beaten back by sheer force of numbers, no matter how many they took out of the game. Gradually, they found themselves moving backward to try to get some space between themselves and the waves of swampies, stumbling and falling on the marshy ground, sinking into the soft mud of the swamp. It made firing harder, enabled the swampies to gain a little more ground.
Jak heard cursing in Cajun French—a girl’s voice—and then a volley of blasterfire—blunderbuss and shotgun fire, pellets raining through the air and smacking into the oncoming swampies, slowing those it didn’t take out of the game. The firing was staggered, and as he continued to fire, Jak counted three separate weapons. The woman—he couldn’t think of her as a girl, even without seeing her—yelled instructions in Cajun, and the three fighters moved to join the companions.
With the extra blasters, the relays of fire began to take effect. The increase in pellets peppering their flesh began to make the swampies think twice, and the remaining muties began to retreat, some desultory rifle fire from them marking their retreat.
When they had vanished into the swamp, there was carnage laying before the assembled fighters. The mud was littered with corpses, the waters awash with blood.
Ryan turned to the woman. “Who the hell are you?”
Her eyes flashed and she snapped, “Some way to greet those who stopped you being stew for those fuckers.” Then her eyes settled on Jak. “As for you—never thought see you again.”
“Not know you,” Jak replied, which was true. He didn’t recognize her personally, but he knew where she and the two men accompanying her had come from. One of the men was small, with a barrel chest and a shaved head, a wispy beard tied in a knot hanging from his chin. The other was also short, but was whip-thin like Jak, with tattoos on his bare chest and arms. He was clean-shaved, but had a long ponytail flowing down his back. The woman was shorter than the men, with full breasts that strained at her shirt. Long black hair in ringlets framed a face that had full lips and flashing dark eyes. Flashing with anger.
Because these three people lived in West Lowellton—the ones Jak had left behind.
“So you come back when we’re in shit, expect a welcome?” The barrel-chested man spit. “Lucky we didn’t leave you to it, Jak fuckin’ Lauren.”
The woman held up a hand. “Shut fuck up, LaRue. No one gets eaten by swampies, no matter who.”
“Lady, I don’t want to interrupt this little family reunion, but can someone tell me what’s going on here?” Mildred cut in.
The woman looked at her and smiled. “Hey, Blackie, don’t remember you, Know One-eye, Red, Four-eyes and the old man. Where the others? Buy the farm somewhere? Don’t matter,” she added quickly. “What matters is that Jak go with you, leave us after chilling Baron Tourment. Only work not done. Someone else come and stir shit up—and where the man then? Gone.”
“How supposed to know that?” Jak asked.
“Supposed to stay, help us,” LaRue spat back.
“Leave it!” the woman snapped. “Mebbe this mean something, yeah? We pray for miracle, the Lord send Jak Lauren back. Mebbe to settle old score, mebbe to put things right. C’mon,” she added, turning to go, “we go get dry, eat. Then stir some shit up ourselves.”
The companions fell in behind the trio of fighters.
“So what do we call you—other than big mouth,” Mildred questioned.
The woman laughed. “Like it… Marissa. Him LaRue,” she added, indicating the barrel-chested man. “And him Prideaux,” she continued, indicating the ponytailed man. Both glared at the companions. Marissa laughed again. “And guess what—they don’t like you. Me? I ain’t made my mind up yet.”