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“Okay, we better do a recon of the whole base,” Ryan decided, pulling out his SiG-Sauer and jacking the slide to chamber a round. “We go two on two. Krysty with me, Doc with Jak, J.B. with Mildred. Stay tight. You find anything still alive, blow its mutie head off and come running.”
“Why do you think it would be a mutie?” Krysty asked, her animated hair flexing in harmony with her thoughts.
Frowning, Ryan loosened the panga in its sheath. “’Cause nothing norm would have willingly stayed in this graveyard,” he stated. “We meet in the garage on the top level in an hour. Let’s go.”
As the companions separated into pairs, Krysty and Ryan headed down the main corridor toward the elevator. The doors opened with a soft sigh, exposing a tangle of bodies, knives still thrust into throats and bellies. Bypassing the corpses for the moment, the man and woman shifted the dead out of the lift. The dried bodies weighed very little.
Removing a colonel with large wounds in his back, Krysty discovered a naked woman on the bottom of the pile. Her military uniform askew and ripped in places. Both of the female soldier’s hands clutched a pair of automatic pistols with the slides kicked back showing they were empty, and there was spent brass everywhere. The black-rimmed glasses and rictus grin gave the face of the female mummy a demonic appearance that was unnerving even to the hardened travelers of the Deathlands.
Muttering a curse, Ryan looked at the male soldiers he had placed in the hallway, and saw that some of them had their pants unzipped and belt buckles loosened.
“Attempted gang rape.” He growled deep in his throat. Looking at Krysty, the man had a brief flash of when he’d first met the redhead in a burning barn, a coldheart going after her. “What the hell happened to these people? From what I read, the predark military of America didn’t do this kind of thing.”
“Well, for some reason, these were about to,” Krysty said. “At least the woman died fighting and took them with her.”
“Small comfort.”
“Agreed, lover. But better than the alternative.”
“Guess so,” Ryan stated as he took the woman’s ankles and Krysty took the shoulders. “But the sooner we get out of here, the better.”
“No argument there,” Krysty said, her green eyes flashing in ill-controlled hatred.
Gently, they placed the corpse off by herself and got into the waiting elevator. Ryan hit the button for the basement, and the door sighed shut. The elevator car began to silently descend into the bowels of the subterranean fortress.
In the hallway, something stirred in a shadowy corner and sluggishly started shifting the corpses until there was a clear path to the elevator once more.
Chapter Four
Heading for the front gate, Sandra Tregart strode along the streets of the ville. Now that the food had been delivered, she had more important things to do. Much more important.
This was the day to try the Demon! she thought, feeling a tingle of excitement. After so many failures, this one had to work. It would work! Or heads would roll.
Cutting through the marketplace, Tregart smelled the aroma of cooking soup in the air, and people were already lined up with cups or wooden bowls, impatiently waiting for their share. As she passed, the people smiled and waved, and old folk too weak to wait in line joyously called her name from second-story windows.
“Bless you, lady!” an old man shouted. “All hail the Baroness Tregart!”
Several more people took up the cry, and Sandra smiled at that. How amusing. Baroness, eh? Did they think Sandra was her mother, or that she should take over the ville from her father? Either way, they would only have to wait a few more days and the matter would be settled. Permanently.
Turning a corner, Sandra saw a commotion near the front gate and spotted a couple of outlanders arguing with the sec men on guard duty. Then one of the outlanders passed over a bottle half full of amber liquid, and the sec men waved the strangers through. She stopped in her tracks, rigid with fury. A sec man took a bribe to admit an outlander!
“Hold it right there!” Sandra bellowed, starting forward again quickly.
The sec men blanched at her approach and cowered in fear. One of them threw the bottle away and it crashed on the street. However, the outlanders only drunkenly leered in frank appraisal of the woman. Her clothes were clean, and her blouse was open at the neck, exposing a wealth of rising cleavage.
“Nuke me running,” the tall outlander said with a chuckle. “The gaudy sluts come to mee’cha right at the gate! Black dust, now that’s what I call hospitality!”
“I’d give a working blaster for a ride on that,” the short man agreed, slurring the words. Spitting into his palms, he smoothed back his greasy hair. “Yes, sir, a working blaster!”
The nearby people went silent, and the guards began to quickly move away from the outlanders. They had seen this all before and knew what was coming.
However, near the edge of the crowd, a teenage boy placed his cracked bowl on a windowsill and started forward. “How dare you speak like that to her!” he shouted angrily, grabbing a rock from the ground.
With a curt gesture, Sandra made him stop. Respectfully, the teen moved back into the line and dropped the stone.
“Shitfire, ya sure got him well trained!” The tall stranger laughed uproariously.
“How much?” the other man asked, jingling a pocket. “We got brass, for that ass.”
“What was that again?” Sandra asked in a deceptively soft voice, crossing her arms.
“You h-heard me, bitch,” the outlander hiccuped, rubbing his crotch. “My buddy and I have just spent a fucking month trekking through sand and rocks to reach the Ohi, and we ain’t seen a gaudy house since Christ was a cowboy.”
“So how much?” the short man added, staring at her breasts. “Come on, name a price!”
“Months, eh? So, have you two been using each other?” Sandra asked, smiling sweetly. “Or do you prefer muties? I hear there is a nest of stickies just to the north of here.” She squinted as if trying to get a better view of their stunned faces. “Yes, several of their uglier young do resemble you two quite a lot.”
“Fuckin’ bitch!” the tall outlander snarled, pulling out a knife. “No slut talks to me like that!”
Weaving slightly, the other man started to add something, but finally noticed the fearful expressions of the neighboring crowd. What the hell, they were acting as if this gaudy slut was the baron! And for the first time, the outlander moved his gaze off the body and onto her face. Looked hard. Her beauty was without flaw, her full lips and dark eyes bewitching. But even through the drunken haze, he saw the raging fury behind those lovely eyes, and suddenly knew he was looking into the face of death.
Spreading his hands to show he wasn’t armed, the short outlander rapidly shuffled toward the gate, while his snarling friend lumbered forward.
“Ya nuke-eating slut, I’m gonna cut you a new one,” the tall man said, reaching for the woman’s arm.
In a lightning-fast move almost too fast to follow, Sandra uncrossed her arms and leveled a derringer, the little blaster almost hidden in her closed fist. She fired, and the tongue of flame from the .44 Magnum round actually engulfed the outstretched hand of the outlander.
Recoiling, he raised a bloody hand, with several fingers missing, the shock masking the agony of the mutilation. The drunk was still reeling, the pain only starting to contort his features, when Sandra stepped close to slash across his face with a knife. The blade opened his face like wet bread and burst his left eye. Blood went everywhere.
Shrieking, the outlander fumbled for the rusty wheelgun tucked into his belt. But Sandra slashed again, severing the tendons of his hand. Screaming in pain, he pulled the arm back with the hand flopping loosely at the end like a dead thing tied to a stick. Now the derringer roared once more, and crimson erupted from the man’s crotch, the discharge setting fire to his soiled pants. Howling in mindless agony, the drunk toppled over, and the woman started to hack him to pieces with her sharp knife.
Staggering away, the short outlander was almost past the gate when he stopped, a rush of shame filling his belly like acid rain. That was his friend back there getting aced. They had traveled together for years, fought side by side, eating out of the same rusty cans, huddling under the same ratty blanket for warmth in the mountains, one of them holding a girl while the other had his fun. They were brothers in everything but blood, and he was leaving him behind to get aced by some feeb slut?
Blind fury filled the outlander. Yelling a battle cry, he spun and pulled out his blaster, then charged, shooting at every step.
With the first shot, the crowd vanished as if by magic, and Sandra quickly raised the twitching man as a shield. The mutilated drunk jerked as the incoming lead slammed into his chest, and his shoulders slumped into the sweet release of death.
Snarling, Sandra tossed the body aside and pulled out a second derringer. Hot lead hummed through the fragrant air going past her head, and the baron’s daughter fired both barrels in unison.
The running outlander’s throat exploded under the double assault and, dropping his blaster, he grabbed his neck with both hands. Gurgling horribly, he fought for breath as Sandra threw the knife and it slammed into the man’s chest. Going limp, the outlander took a single step, then collapsed upon the street.
Calmly, Sandra reloaded her little weapons and hid them away again, carefully pocketing the spent brass. Her father had taught her how to shoot, and her brother had instructed her to save everything. But nobody had trained her to kill; it was a natural talent.
“Wall guard!” Sandra shouted through a cupped hand.
An armed sergeant on top of the ville wall waved in reply.
“Have this drek fed to the dogs and place two new men on the gate!” she yelled loudly.
The sergeant gave a salute and rushed off to relay the command.
“You two, come here,” Sandra ordered, pointing at the sec men near the open gate.
Glancing nervously at each other, the sec men walked closer and dropped to a knee in the street.
“Idiots and fools. Ten lashes for taking a bribe,” she said coldly. “Plus, ten for not closing the gate before leaving your post. Plus, ten more for tossing the bottle of shine away! Everybody knows that every drop in the ville belongs to me. Me!”
“Thirty lashes? But, ma’am…” one of them began, looking down a side street toward the barracks. Directly in front of the brick building was a large wooden cross, dripping with leather straps. The punishment rack.
Setting her jaw, Tregart glared. “Forty lashes,” she barked. “Or do you want to make it fifty?”
The sec men looked at the ground and said nothing. Letting them stay that way for a few minutes, Sandra snapped her fingers. “Rise, fools. Now leave, before I have you crucified for being cowards.”
Turning pale, the two sec men gave a shaky salute and went back to the gate to wait for replacement guards.
“As for you, boy,” the woman announced, walking over to the terrified teenager. On closer inspection, Tregart could see he was dressed like one of the pilgrims that had arrived a few months ago from the southlands, raggedy clothing covered with of patches, and sandals made from pieces of car tires held on with some rope.
“Ma’am?” he said, cowering slightly.
As Sandra stopped in front of him, the teen bent a knee in respect. She smiled at that. Respect given freely was twice as sweet as obedience though fear. Yes, he would do nicely. “You may rise, boy,” Sandra said benignly. “I saw you start forward to help me in this.” She gestured at the sprawling corpses.
“I live here, and you are the daughter of my baron,” he muttered, turning red in the face as he awkwardly stood.
“Apparently you are the only man who remembered that!” Sandra said, her voice rising into a shout.
The other people standing nearby shuffled uneasily as if trying to hide behind one another. Sandra gave them the full weight of her stare for a few moments, then turned her back on them.
“I need a ground man,” she said, running her fingers through the boy’s mane of greasy hair, but finding no lice or other vermin. “To help with the Angel. The job is yours. Report to the barracks for a hot bath, a meal and a blaster.”
His head snapped up at that, his young eyes going wide. “My lady?” he whispered.
“You heard me, lad.” Tregart chuckled. “What is your name?”
“Brian, my lady.”
“Nothing more? No last name?”
He shrugged. “No, my lady.”
“Then I shall give you one,” Sandra stated, glancing at the rock he had tried to use earlier. “From this day on, you’re Brian Stone. Is that acceptable?”
Eagerly, the teenager nodded.
“Very good, Stone,” she said, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe her hand clean. “Now get moving, and go get that bath, Afterward, you can claim what you want from the clothing of the outlanders. I can’t have my guards fighting muties barefoot.”
“Boots, too, my lady?” Brian asked, his voice rising a notch in disbelief. His bare toes wiggled at the prospect.
Sandra began to laugh. “Yes, boots, too, Mr. Stone. And don’t forget a gunbelt for your new blaster!”
“Yes, my lady!” Brian cried, taking off down the street toward the barracks. “Blessings upon you!”
As the teenager raced away, Sandra turned in a slow circle to scowl at the rest of the people present.
“As for the rest of you!” she said, not shouting, but somehow her voice seemed to cascade along the street. “My thanks for your loyalty!”
Nobody dared to speak as a dry wind from the desert beyond the Ohi moved across the ville.
“It shall be remembered.” She sneered, then turned on a heel and headed for the gate once more.
“She never would have acted like this with Edmund still alive,” a bald man muttered, watching her leave. “Do you think she’ll…you know…to Brian?” He made a vague gesture.
A toothless old woman nodded as the line shifted forward. “She did to all of the rest, so why not him, eh?”
“I’d rather be aced,” another man stated.
“Ghastly,” a young woman shuddered.
Just then, the breeze shifted direction to bring them the tantalizing smell of the cooking food, and the hunger in their bellies drove out any further thoughts of compassion toward the fate awaiting the new young sec man.
TAKING THE STAIRS, J.B. and Mildred climbed over the corpses littering the steps. A lot of the lights were out in the passageway, and Mildred decided it would be wise to use her flashlight.
Reaching inside her med kit, she pulled out the precious device and pumped the small handle several times to charge the ancient batteries inside. The survivalist tool had been among several items the companions had found in a looted hardware store, and it was irreplaceable.
Flicking the switch, Mildred was relieved to see a pale yellow beam from the device illuminate the stairwell in golden tones.
“Dark night!” J.B. cried, swinging up his Uzi as something moved in the shadows. But the man refrained from firing at the very last moment when he saw the rope wrapped around the man’s throat. As a warm breeze wafted from the air vents in the wall, the body moved again, gently swaying back and forth.
“A suicide,” Mildred said, tightening her grip on her revolver.
“Can you blame him?” J.B. answered as they climbed the steps rising past the dangling body.
At the top of the stairs J.B. found a Marine with an M-16 assault rifle by his side, an ammo pouch of clips over his shoulder. The sergeant had been shot in the belly and clearly bled to death, as evidenced from the pool of dried blood around him on the floor.
Checking the pouch, Mildred found only spent clips, but J.B. found the clip partially inserted into the M-16 was fully loaded. Easing the clip into the weapon, he flicked off the safety and worked the arming bolt by hand to cycle all thirty rounds through the weapon. Nothing jammed. Reloading the clip, he slapped it into the assault rifle and slung it across his back. There were hundreds of dead soldiers in the redoubt. If each of them only had a few live rounds on their person, this could be the biggest find of weapons in many a month!
“Sure hope there’s some food, too,” Mildred said, obviously following his train of thought.
“Gotta be,” he said, easing open the door to the next level with the barrel of the Uzi. “This many mouths had to be fed.”
Mildred clicked off her flashlight at the sight of the brightly illuminated hallway. Then she stopped in her tracks, and J.B. muttered a curse.
A sandbag nest had been built in the middle of an intersection of corridors, the dead men lying on top of the belt-fed .50-caliber machine guns. These soldiers had no obvious signs of violence, but more importantly, they were all wearing gas masks.
HEADING DIRECTLY to the galley, Doc and Jak found the doors barred with tables, bullet holes and spent shells everywhere, along with several ruined sections of the corridor that could only have been caused by grens.
“Like started doing wolfweed,” Jak muttered, brushing the silky white hair from his face.
Pressing his face to the window in a door, Doc looked around the kitchen and recoiled in shock.
