The sun was just rising over the horizon, casting a clean pearlescent light across the world, highlighting the deadly orange clouds of chems and toxins that crackled with thunder.
A dry wind drove twirling dustdevils across the ground, the miniature tornadoes spinning madly and then vanishing when they reached the strip of hard-packed dirt that formed the local highway.
Sitting on their silent two-wheelers, the Rogan brothers rolled along the road, handkerchiefs tied over their lower faces to hold out the ever-present dust that always carried the taste of some ancient foulness. The big men and their bikes were streaked with dirt, the halogen headlights resembling a line of full moons moving through a cloudy night. The Rogans passed a lizard sleeping on a rock without disturbing its slumber. There was only the soft crunching sound of the ground compressing under the weight of the motorcycles as the four coldhearts moved toward the little desert ville ahead.
The landscape around the ville was rippled, as if molten stone had cooled suddenly in the act of expanding. That was a common enough vista in the Zone, the telltale aftermath of a skydark firestorm hit by rain. Nuke-scaping, the wrinklies called it, although nobody but them really knew why anymore.
Reaching a deep ravine, the Rogans reduced their speed and rolled single file across the ramshackle bridge. The bridge was almost choked solid with tumbleweeds caught in corroded supports, and they had to maneuver through the obstructions carefully to avoid going into any of the holes in the predark construction. At the middle of the span, the brothers pulled weapons just a heartbeat before an old man dressed in rags rose from behind a tumbleweed barricade. His dirty hair was a wild corona of filth, and a rag was bound around the shriveled face, a wide scar bisecting the features straight across the middle. The disfigured oldster was armed with a long metal pole that had a broken bottle lashed to the tip. The jagged glass gleamed in the growing morning light.
“Hold it right there, outlanders!” the man commanded in a surprisingly powerful voice for such a scrawny frame. “If you want to cross my bridge…” Just then, he spotted the brothers. He stopped speaking and gasped, the spear shaking in his wizened hands. “What in the nuking…it’s you!”
Never slowing the advance of their black bikes, the Rogans opened fire with their new blasters, the stuttering rapidfires tore the old man apart, blood flying everywhere as the 5.56 mm rounds drove him backward off the bridge.
“Nice to be remembered.” Edward snorted, glancing over the rusty side to watch the tumbling body disappear into the thick river mists below. The run-off water from the nearby mountains had always made the bridge slightly cooler than the rest of the desert, and thus a favorite spot for folks to sit in wait for pilgrims.
“Frag that noise, and reload,” John commanded, circling the hidden campsite of the deceased hermit. “We’re going to need every brass ready when we hit the ville.”
“Can’t disagree with that.” Alan chuckled.
Robert said nothing as the tires of his motorcycle rolled over the dropped spear, the glass shattering below the resilient military tires. It had been nice seeing Crazy Winston again, even if it was only for a split second. Childhood friends became enemies as adults. Such was life. The triple-stupe bastard should have known better than to aim a weapon at them. The last time they had removed only his nose; this time they took everything. Robert shook his head. Some people just never learned.
Leaving the dilapidated bridge behind, the Rogans crossed long miles of empty countryside, carefully veering past an old rad pit that didn’t glow anymore, but was still deadly, and completely avoiding a low hillock bearing the graves of their parents. Let the dead bury the past. They were concentrating on the future.
With the coming of the dawn, birds were winging low across the sky, afraid to rise too high and risk being chilled by the toxic clouds. From somewhere far off came the brittle cry of a screamwing, closely followed by the guttural moan of a howler. The Rogans moved their hands closer to their longblasters at the noise, and fervently hoped the winged mutie and the groundpounder were fighting to the death over something tasty. Screamwings were triple fast, but could be chilled if a person stayed alert. Howlers, on the other hand, were nightmares, all but indescribable and insanely deadly. There were strange new muties roaming the Deathlands these days, creatures unlike anything ever seen before in memory or myth. Some people believed these odd muties had always been around, and were only now wandering into populated areas. John Rogan fervently hoped that was the case. Because if there was something creating new muties…
Cresting a low swell in the dusty ground, the brothers saw their halogen headlights wash across the tan wall surrounding a deserted ville. The pitiful barrier was made of adobe bricks, sun-dried blocks of mud. Each brick was about the size of a shoebox, and the wall reached nearly six feet in height, its top layer sparkling from all of the broken glass embedded into the material. The front gate was a thick wooden door, just wide enough for a person on horseback to ride through. The barrier was formidable, but swung aside at the moment, the opening flanked by crackling torches set into the adobe wall, inviting all to come inside. Softly in the distance could be heard a tinkling piano and female laughter.
“Dempster,” John pronounced hatefully, slowing his bike.
The other brothers followed suit as they slowly rode through the gap in the defensive wall. There was a rocking chair for a guard, but nobody was in sight.
“Trusting souls,” Edward said in disgust. “The idiots are still offering a friendly hand to everybody who passes by. What a bunch of feebs.”
Dempster was pretty much as he remembered, little more than a double row of shacks surrounded by a mud wall. The last time the brothers had been here, the wall was only four feet tall, so the civies were making progress, just not a hell of a lot of it.
For some unfathomable reason, muties avoided Dempster completely, and not even stingwings would fly overhead. This made the place a natural sanctuary, and soon every biker gang and coldheart knew about Dempster. Fighting wasn’t allowed inside the ville, and whenever one gang got ambitious and decided to take over the ville, everybody else combined against the usurpers. Dempster was neutral territory. Anybody inside the mud brick walls was safe from attack or revenge for old crimes.
Until today, Edward added in grim amusement.
Squinting hard, Alan grunted at the sight of a newly built guard tower rising from the center of the ville. But it was clear that there was nobody there.
“Nuking idiots,” Robert groaned, annoyed and pleased at the same instant. He eased the new combo rapidfire across his lap. “This is gonna be fun.”
“Shaddup,” John ordered from behind his fluttering cloth mask. “Just keep your eyes peeled for the Watering Hole. That’s our goal. Never mind settling old scores.”
His brothers grunted in acknowledgment, but their hard gazes swept the assortment of adobe buildings looking for familiar faces.
SMOKING A CORNCOB PIPE, Daniel Winterborn was leaning against a wooden beam that supported the roof of a porch in front of the tavern. Letting the pungent smoke trickle out of his nostrils, the Apache calmly watched as the four outlanders rode their sleek machines down the street like ghosts in the night.
Damnedest thing, four outlanders on two-wheelers, and all of the wags in perfect condition! That was when he saw their collection of longblasters. Were those rapidfires? His great-grandfather had told him stories about such weapons, but he never thought to actually see one, much less four! Blood of the Earth, who the nuking hell were these men, a pack of roaming barons? As the bikers rolled by, Daniel studied the faces behind the crude masks and went cold inside. The Rogans!
Dropping the hair comb he had been carving from a piece of bone, Daniel tucked the knife into his horsehair belt. Shifting the pipe to the other side of his mouth, he swung away from the beam and stepped off the porch, heading for the horse corral across town. He had a knife, but that wouldn’t mean drek against four fragging rapidfires!
Winterborn was no doomie, able to see things that hadn’t happened yet, or a shaman, able to unlock the mysteries of the past, but he could smell blood on the wind. There was a graveyard outside the western wall with over a score of men and women buried under the rock and sand from failed attempts to raid the neutral ville. However, Daniel knew that there was always room for more on the last train west. And he had a bad feeling in his bones that this time he wouldn’t be pitching the dirt, but catching it in the face. No, thanks.
As Daniel neared the hole in the wall, a coyote howled from a distant hilltop and abruptly stopped. Just that single clarion call to the sister moon and then unnatural quiet. The moment Daniel turned the corner of the blacksmith’s shop and was out of sight of the four riders, he broke into a frantic run for the gate. To hell with his horse. Brother coyote loved to play tricks, but never lied about death. Dempster would run red tonight, and the Mother Earth would weep for all the people returning to her bosom.
NOTICING A MOVEMENT out of the corner of his vision, Alan started to reach for the revolver on his belt, yet another gift from the hated Delphi found in the cargo pods of the bikes. But as fast as he moved, the running person was gone, hopping over the adobe wall and vanishing into the rosy dawn. Had to have been Winterborn. Nobody else was smart enough to run for the hills when the Rogans came riding into town.
“There it is,” Edward said, jerking his chin to the left.
Gazing through the growing sunlight, John saw the tavern and felt a brief twinge of homesickness. Located in the heart of the ville, the brick building rose three full stories and had a slate roof that defied the acid rains, plus a brass front door marred by countless ricochets until the dents resembled a deliberate pattern hammered into the metal for decoration. Iron bars covered the windows, making the tavern resemble a fortress, or a baron’s home, but it was just a gaudy house. Neutral territory deep inside neutral territory. The music was louder now and gales of laughter, both male and female, reached their ears.
“Home,” Robert said, his expression unreadable.
As the Rogans rolled closer, the brothers could see that armed sec men were walking on the flat roof. Faint traces of tobacco, wolfweed, stale sweat and warm beer could be smelled in the air. They flinched as a breeze carried the strong reek of urine from the public lav set off to the side.
A couple of tired-looking horses were tied to a hitching rail in front of the brick building, and a wag of some kind stood nearby. It almost looked like a predark car, except that the chassis had been removed and patched canvas was stretched tight over the body of the machine.
For better mileage, John realized. Less weight meant you could go faster. Mebbe that canvas drek would keep off the acid rain, but that was about it for protection.
“Only a fool trades armor for speed,” Alan said in disgust.
Bringing their bikes to a smooth halt directly in front of the door, the brothers got off and each flipped a switch, setting the alarms and antipers devices. The small on-board computers were in perfect working condition, and the bikes could protect themselves with deadly efficiently. Or so Delphi had said.
Pulling the combo blasters from their holsters, the Rogans rested the weps on their shoulders and started past the horses. Nickering softly, the nervous animals moved out of the way of the brothers. Lowering the barrels of their black-powder longblasters, the sec men on the roof watched but did nothing as the four big outlanders calmly walked onto the porch and out of sight beneath the overhang.
Sitting on the porch in a folding chair, a wrinklie softly played a harmonica. He looked up as the brothers tromped onto the porch, the rising sun behind the brothers masking their features in reddish shadows.
“Howdy,” the old man said, lowering his musical instrument. “Welcome to the Watering Hole! Don’t cost any jack to go in, but if you want me to watch your rides—”
Without a word, Alan thrust his hand forward and buried a knife in the man’s throat. The startled oldster spread his lips as if to scream, but only a gurgling noise came out, closely followed by a crimson welling of blood.
Impatiently, Alan shoved the blade in deeper and twisted. With a gurgling shudder, the wrinklie went limp, the harmonica dropping to the dusty wooden planks of the porch.
Pulling the blade free, Alan wiped it clean on the still-warm chest of the corpse as Robert grabbed the harmonica and tucked it into a pocket. Hadn’t seen one of these for some time.
“On my command,” John said, working the bolt on the combo rapidfire. “And not before.”
“Check.” Edward grunted, then pushed open the heavy metal door with the barrel of his blaster.
Bright light and smoke poured onto the porch like peeking into a oven. Sauntering inside, John noticed the holstered blaster hidden under the vest of the dead man on the porch. So, not just a watchdog for the house, eh? He’d remember that.
Even at this early hour of the morning, the Watering Hole was full of drinking men. A old, fat man was sitting at a piano in the corner, playing and singing away. Not too badly, either. The walls were covered with predark foldouts of naked females, and sparkled with dozens of the rainbow-colored disks some folks called a CD. Nobody knew what they were for, but the disks always made nice decorations—although the scantily dressed sluts leaning over the second-floor banister were a lot prettier. Some of the gaudy sluts were smoking handrolled cigs, their bare breasts swinging in tempo to the music. John felt his blood grow warm. After so much time in the wilds of the Deathlands, that was a wonderful sight. But not why they were here today. Biz first, fun later.
As they recalled from endless childhood days of scrubbing on their hands and knees, the floor of the gaudy house was also made of red brick, the material worn smooth into a paths between the heavy tables. In the exact center of the tavern was its namesake, an artesian well. Even as a kid, John had been impressed by that. This was the only source of clean water for a hundred miles, so the locals had built a tavern around it and opened for business. Trading water for food, Dempster had managed to stay alive during the years of chaos after skydark and then the horrible Mutie Wars. The beer and gaudy sluts came later, but water was the local jack; cool, clear spring water without a trace of rads or toxins.
Just a little of our piss. John chuckled. Watching the hated customers drink from the well after riding their mother upstairs, the brothers had savored the little revenge. Flavoring the well had been their first act of rebellion, but hardly their last.
A dozen people were sitting on wooden barrels along the bar, drinking from cracked plastic cups. On the balcony directly above, a gaudy slut smoking a cheroot was looking down at the boisterous crowd. The busty woman was wearing only a loose pink gown that hung down at her sides, showing all of her worn charms. Along the left wall, a flight of wooden stairs led to the second-floor balcony. Situated at the bottom of the stairs was a young girl sitting behind a heavy wooden table. On top of the table was a ceramic bowl full of wooden markers bearing room numbers and an alcohol lantern still burning brightly in spite of the daylight shining through the dusty windows. The gaudy slut looked bored and the lantern was almost out of shine. The long night of work was nearly finished and a new day was about to begin.
Alan nudged John at the sight of the girl, and the elder Rogan grunted in reply. However, Robert and Edward were scowling at the large man sitting in the far corner. From the sheer size of the man, his heavily scarred hands and broken nose, he had to be the bouncer. When customers got rowdy, the bouncer would slam them back down in their chair or heave them out the door. No sense wasting brass on a drunk, when a good thumping was all that was really needed. The corner position gave the bouncer a full view of the entire first floor, and kept anybody from sneaking behind him to try to get upstairs for free. The bouncer was big, old and wide, with fingers as thick as sausages, a formidable enough guard even without the predark shotgun cradled in his massive hands.
Robert noticed that immediately. A pump-action. If it still worked, that would be real trouble.
Drunken men were moving throughout the gaudy house. A skinny woman with buckteeth was sitting behind a Dutch door, haggling with each customer over what they wanted and how to pay. As the Rogans watched, a teenager laid down a chicken and was sent over to the girl at the bottom of the stairs. She gave the teen a room marker, and he raced up the steps to be met by a haggard slut many times his age. Then a trapper wrapped in furs laid down a single rifle cartridge. The bucktooth woman bit the brass to check and make sure it wasn’t painted wood, then sent him over to the girl. She gave the trapper a marker and he trundled up the steps to knock on the first door. It was opened by two young girls who started giggling and pulled him inside, then slammed the door shut.
“Ready?” Alan asked impatiently, his hands itching to get busy.
In stoic reply, John swung the combo rapidfire off his shoulder and clicked off the safety with a thumb.
“Hey, put down those blasters!” a raven-haired girl yelled from behind the bar.
With a smile, John pointed the wep at her and burped the M-16, the short burst of 5.56 mm rounds stitching across her chest and shattering the glass bottles on the wall behind in foamy explosions.
A drunk dropped his glass at the zipper noise of the rapidfire, another cursed, a third started to scream, and the four Rogan brothers cut loose, the stuttering streams of the predark mil lead cutting through the crowd, sending out geysers of death. Lunging out of his chair, the bouncer worked the pump-action on his scattergun just as Edward fired. The burst of incoming rounds tore the bouncer apart, knocking the scattergun from his grip. On the bar, an alcohol lantern shattered, spraying blue flame everywhere, and the posters on the wall caught fire. Going back-to-back, the Rogans kept firing, moving across the tavern and chilling everybody in sight.
A man flipped over a table for protection, but then stood with a hatchet in his hand, ready to throw. Alan shot the fellow through the flimsy piece of furniture. Shrieking, the man dropped the hatchet and fell from view, his groin gushing red across his pants. The screaming continued, but nobody paid him any attention.
Just then a door slammed open on the second floor and the naked sec man came charging out, brandishing two handcannons. Angling their chattering weps upward, Edward and Robert caught the man in cross fire, just as he trigger one of the blasters. The shot smacked the wooden bucket dangling above the well, and spring water poured forth to join the shine and blood spreading across the brick floor.
“Stop shooting! We surrender!” a bald man shouted from behind the bar, raising both of his hands. “Just stop shooting! Take whatever ya want!”
Inserting a fresh clip, Alan gave the bartender a single look and noted his hands were turned backward. To hide something in his palms? Stroking the trigger, Alan blew the fellow away with a concentrated burst to the chest. The man slammed backward into the broken bottles, dropping the hidden knife.
On the balcony, a girl threw open a door to stare down in horror at the mounting carnage. Laughing wildly, Robert shot her twice. She staggered away, clutching the tattered fleshy ruins of her naked breasts.
“Stop chilling the sluts!” John yelled, gunning down a fat man crawling on the floor.
“We only need the one!” his brother retorted.
“Need, yes! But I want at least three!”
As the brothers continued to shoot, empty brass went flying to land on the brick floor with musical tinklings. The madam of the tavern suddenly popped up from behind the Dutch door with a loaded crossbow. She fired and Alan dodged, the arrow scoring a bloody furrow along his cheek. Bitch!
Snarling in rage, Edward shot the madam once in the belly. Losing the weapon, the screaming woman grabbed her guts and doubled over, then Edward shot her in the forehead, blowing out her existence in a ghastly spray of bones, blood and brains.
Suddenly the bronze front door was slammed open and there stood two armed sec men holding black-powder longblasters.
“Freeze, this is neutral ground!” one of them bellowed. “Surrender, or die!”
Pivoting at the waist, John grabbed the ammo clip extending under the combo rapidfire and pulled the trigger on the 40 mm gren launcher set under the M-16 barrel. Even as the sec men brought up their longblasters, the M-203 roared and the predark charge of steel fléchettes tore them into bloody hamburger. The shattered longblasters fired randomly as their chilled owners fell lifeless to the porch, no longer recognizable as human beings.
At the bottom of the stairs, the girl flipped over the battered table and took refuge behind the heavy piece of furniture. The air of the tavern was thick with blaster smoke, and screams, along with the unmistakable stench of chilled people. The horrible reek made her gag and she tried not to retch. Escape was her only hope. But the front door was impossible to reach, as were the stairs. She’d have to cross open floor to reach either, and that meant instant death in this firefight. What should she do?
A terrible silence unexpectedly filled the bar as the rapidfires stopped shooting. Trying to control her breathing, the cringing girl wondered if the invaders had run out of brass when the table was shoved aside and there stood two of the coldhearts, grinning down at her like muties discovering a newborn. Then recognition hit and she gasped out loud.
“You!” she cried, raising an arm for protection.
“Hi, Lily.” John chuckled as Robert slammed the stock of his rapidfire directly into her face.
The girl went reeling, the pain making her blind. Then a terrible warmth spread through her body and the girl felt herself falling for the floor, but never hit it. Lily Rogan merely kept going, tumbling into a bottomless void. Her last conscious thought was a desperate prayer for death to escape the cold revenge of her brothers.
AFTER A QUICK DINNER of MRE packs, Ryan and the companions divided up into teams. As bachelors, Doc and Jak took the first watch, and worked out a simple sweep of the redoubt to watch for any more hunting probes or another of those jelly guardians.
Meanwhile the others hit the showers and went to bed. The following day was going to be busy, and tired minds made mistakes. A single slip in the coming fight could get them all chilled, so in spite of the urgency to leave, a few hours of sleep had been deemed necessary.
The big showers in the barracks had only delivered rusty water, no matter how long the companions allowed them to run. So they checked the private stalls in the officer’s quarters and found two that delivered clean water. It wasn’t very hot, but they were used to a lot worse, and at least it was clean.
Krysty had insisted that Ryan go first, and he hadn’t put up too much of a struggle. Soaking for a long time in the shower, Ryan placed his throbbing hands under a stream of cold until his teeth started to chatter. Turning off the shower, Ryan awkwardly wrapped a towel around himself and padded over to the bedroom he had chosen. The mattress wasn’t in very good shape, by after laying a bedroll on top, it was comfortable enough.
Following Mildred’s orders, he took some aspirin and then sat at the desk to do some work. Clumsily taking loose 9 mm brass from a U.S. Army ammo box, he inserted them into the empty clips for the MP-5 and the SIG-Sauer. Thankfully, both weps took the same size brass. When a clip was full, Ryan would place it aside, then start on the next from the waiting stack.
Eventually, he was done. Now, Ryan carefully applied fresh meds to his red hands, then slid on a pair of calfskin gloves he had found in a foot locker. As a test, he made a fist with his right hand and punched his open left palm. Then did it the other way. The blows stung, but the pain was barely there. Good. That meant he could handle a blaster without any problems.
A shadow appeared in the doorway, and Ryan brought up the SIG-Sauer without conscious thought before realizing it was Krysty.
“Hey,” he said by way of greeting, clicking back on the safety and laying the blaster on the table. “Was there still any warm water?”
“Hey, yourself, lover.” Krysty smiled, padding barefoot into the room, a towel held to her chest with a bare arm. “And yes, there was plenty of hot water.”
“Really? I guess the bastard pipes were just waiting for me to leave before they decide to work,” Ryan said, giving a rare chuckle.
“Seems likely,” Krysty said softly, placing a bare foot on a chair. She removed the towel and started drying her legs, slowly working her way upward.
“Dishwasher works in the galley, too,” Ryan said, his heart starting to pound at the delicious sight. He watched her every movement. “So Doc finally got a chance to thoroughly clean the hogleg.”
Raising her head, Krysty laughed at that. “I remember the first time I saw him tuck the LeMat into a dishwasher and turn on the machine, I thought he’d gone insane.”
But Ryan didn’t reply, his eyes feasting on the statuesque beauty standing naked in the subdued light of the mil lamp. There were no scars on her skin; it was smooth and perfect. Briefly he recalled the first time he’d seen her in that burning barn, and once more felt the exact same electric punch to his guts he had on that fateful day.
“Been a long time since we had any privacy, hasn’t it, lover?” Krysty whispered, moving the towel across her taut belly and then drying under her full breasts.
“Too bastard long,” Ryan replied huskily, gingerly flexing his gloved hands. “Almost forget what you looked like this way.”
“Then we better refresh your memory.” The woman dropped the towel. Stepping away from the chair, Krysty held out both arms in an unmistakable invitation.
Kicking back his chair, Ryan strode around the table and took Krysty in his arms, pulling her close. For a long moment they simply stood there, savoring the delicious feel of skin against skin. Then Ryan took her by the chin and tilted her face to meet his. They kissed, tenderly at first, then with growing passion as the physical need for each other washed away the events of the day, and soon there was only the here and now of their intimacy.
Moaning in pleasure, Krysty moved her soft hands along the rock-hard body of the man, touching every scar. So many battles, so much pain.
Kissing her velvet throat, Ryan slid his gloves down to cup her buttocks, then jerked them away. Krysty could feel his passion ebbing and took his gloves in her hands to place them on her breasts.
“Yours,” she whispered. “I am yours, forever.”
Ryan looked into her eyes, asking a silent question. She answered by leaning closer and kissing him passionately, her tongue darting into his mouth, her hands caressing his manhood until he was firm and ready.
Scooping her up in his strong arms, Ryan walked Krysty to the bed and put her down gently. He took her by the hips, trying to be tender as he pushed between her knees and slid into the electric wetness of her moist folds. But her hips thrust forward, driving herself onto him, so he responded with increased urgency. Their sweaty bodies rocked back and forth, soon finding the rhythm eternal, until they were one, a single groaning entity. Not a word was spoken. None was needed.
As Ryan plunged deep inside, Krysty laced her fingers behind his muscular neck, her living hair reaching out to brush his face as the two lost themselves in the wondrous pleasures of the night.
Slowly the long night passed. Secrets were shared, fantasies fulfilled. All too soon dawn would come and the work would begin. But for now, at this time, there was only each other and a precious few moments of joy to savor, a private celebration of life primordial from deep within the burning heart of the savage Deathlands.