Ryan snapped his head in that direction and saw the white plume rising from behind a sand dune on the distant horizon. The smoke was still rising so it had to be from a new fire.

  “Think it’s our pilot cooking dinner?” Krysty asked, her whole body faintly shaking from the restrained BMW engine.

  “Or being cooked as dinner,” J.B. retorted when the plume thickened and a bright orange fireball expanded into view.

  The companions waited expectantly, but there was no accompanying sound to the roiling blast.

  “Too far away,” Jak told them, squinting. “Four, mebbe five miles.”

  “Our mysterious plane may be no more,” Doc said, leaning out of the Hummer window. “Should we continue?”

  “Hell, yes,” Ryan growled, gunning the Harley and leaping into the lead. “Until we see the wreckage, I’m going to assume it’s still around. That blast could have simply been the plane bombing something.”

  “Biplane,” Mildred corrected automatically. “Yeah, makes sense. Either way, we need to know.”

  “It is better to learn for certain that something believed to be disproved is wrong,” Doc intoned, “than to believe in the lie of an incorrect fact.”

  J.B. just stared at the fellow, but Mildred burst into laughter. “And as soon as I figure out what the hell that means,” she said with a chuckle, “I’ll have a snappy comeback.”

  “Indeed, madam. And so shall I.”

  Following the river, the companions drove Hummers and motorcycles over the rough ground, trying to keep on a northern route in the general direction of the explosion.

  Skirting dangerously near the edge of the riverbank, Ryan scowled at the rushing water below. It was deep and fast. Not an easy thing to cross. Unless they found a way, this was going to be a wasted trip.

  After about a mile, Ryan and Krysty took point, the nimble motorcycles able to traverse the irregular terrain easier than the lumbering Hummers. Soon, they were driving through a field of weeds, the ground littered with the bits of pieces of a predark city. A smashed stone gargoyle peered out from a bush, the top of a telephone pole jutted from a mound of bricks and decay and a rusted mailbox lay embedded in the hard-packed dirt.

  Finding himself trapped in an arch of rusted metal debris, Ryan stopped his bike to walk it back out. Braking to a halt on the crest of windswept mound, Krysty waited for him to rejoin her before continuing.

  As the Hummers rolled into view again, Krysty noticed that there seemed to be some sort of a brick road under the weeds she was parked in, patches of the broken street still visible here and there among the waving plants. Hoping the road might lead to a bridge, she tried following its course with her eyes, but it seemed to sweep inland to the east. Useless.

  Then Krysty sharply inhaled at the sight of the brick road ending at a large shiny patch of what looked like ice. But she knew better, and her heart started pounding hard. It was a lake of glass. The telltale mark of where a small nuke had gone off. The big ones left deserts that stretched for hundreds of miles. The really big ones leveled mountains.

  “Ryan, check your rad counter!” Krysty snapped urgently, looking to the right.

  “Already did,” Ryan replied, pulling alongside. The predark device on his denim shirt showed they were nowhere near the danger zone yet. “We’re safe enough here. But I wouldn’t go any closer.”

  Starting forward once more, the two rolled through the field of weeds, the nameless city only a cracked suggestion under the layers of windblown sand and stubby cactus. Here and there small pieces of predark buildings jutted, and at one point the corner of a building stood several feet high. The jagged cinder-block wall formed a natural windbreak, and there was a burned spot on the ground to show where the ruins had recently been used as a campsite by somebody.

  “Looks like the place burned down, rather than got nuked,” Krysty said, her hair streaming in the wind. “Probably from the heat flash of the nuke that made the glass lake.”

  Ryan started to agree, when a motion behind the busted wall caught his attention.

  “Ambush,” he cried, pulling his blaster and throwing the Harley into motion.

  As the bikes lurched away, two stickies darted out of hiding, hooting in delight at the sight of the norms. But as the shambling mockeries started forward, Ryan and Krysty simply kept going and soon left the muties far behind.

  Coming into view through the tall weeds, J.B. cursed at the sight of the stickies and savagely twisted the steering wheel. The Hummer swerved hard, and just missed colliding with the stickies as they rushed, hooting at the wag. Sounding the horn as a warning, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the camou-colored Hummer try to arc around the two muties. But another stood from a depression in the ground and spread its arms wide as it embraced the wag. The working suckers lining its flesh made wet smacking noises as they dripped a thick gelatinous ooze. Mildred cursed at that. If the mutie touched the Hummer, the only way to get it off would be with fire.

  “Ram it!” Jak snarled, leveling the M-16.

  Grimly, Mildred hit the gas. Jak fired, and the round hit the stickie just under the left eye, making a neat round hole. As the creature fell to the ground, the Hummer rolled over the mutie and was in the clear.

  In the rearview mirror, Mildred saw more stickies rise from hidden positions among the ruins and realized the place was infested. This was no trap for careless outlanders, but their home. A nest of stickies!

  Leaving the creatures behind, Mildred and Jak soon joined the others on top of a small hill overlooking the river. More smashed buildings stood there, but more importantly, a sagging railroad trestle crossed the rushing water.

  “No way we’re getting across that,” J.B. said, chewing his cigar stub. “Maybe the bikes could, but not these Hummers.”

  “Well, there’s nothing else in sight,” Krysty said, craning her neck. “Mebbe if we went one at a time?”

  “No way,” J.B. stated. “Can’t be done. All that’s holding the bridge together is rust and bird shit.”

  From downriver, the angry hooting from the ruins got a little louder.

  “Our moist friends are disappointed over us not staying for dinner,” Doc said, tightening his grip on the rapid-fire. “Time for a decision, my friends.”

  Kicking down the stand, Ryan parked his bike and walked to the edge of the trestle. Carefully, he studied the water below, then tossed in a stone to check for depth. Yes, it might just work.

  “Whatever you’re doing, hurry it up, lover!” Krysty said, pulling her S&W wheelgun.

  Just then, a stickie rose into view and began to run their way. Closing an eye, the redhead aimed and waited for the mutie to come within range.

  “Okay, get ready!” Ryan said, reaching into a pocket. Pulling out a gren, he yanked the pin free, dropped the handle and tossed the bomb onto the weakened trestle.

  “Down!” he cried, ducking low.

  Eight seconds later the gren detonated and the entire middle span of the bridge was violently blown apart, the fireball almost spanning the river. Shrapnel flew everywhere and, with a tremendous groan, the whole structure came loose from its moorings and tumbled into the river.

  “Get moving!” Ryan cried, scrambling back onto the Harley and gunning the engine.

  Taking the lead, the Deathlands warrior rolled to the edge of the riverbank, then spread his legs to help support the two-wheeler as he eased it over the side and down into the water. The wreckage from the destroyed trestle was still moving as it settled into the mud, and he nosed the Harley onto some wooden railroad ties to start working his way to the other side along the loose piles of bricks and steel girders.

  A few seconds later, Krysty and the Hummers were in the shallows and following his example. The BMW bike rolled along the shifting materials with ease, Krysty darting expertly from pile to pile until she reached dry ground.

  The Hummers didn’t fare as well, the ancient timbers cracking under their weight. Both mil wags dropped into the river, the churning water almost reaching the windows. But the machines were designed for this, and the exhaust stacks on their hoods stayed well clear of the cold Ohi. Switching to four-wheel drive, J.B. fought his wag up a slope of settling bricks and went sailing over the top to land in the shallows with a tremendous splash. But the tough Hummer dug its wide tires into the black mud and battled onto the shore to join Ryan and Krysty waiting for them.

  “Hey, great plan,” J.B. said sarcastically. “I never would have considered blowing up the bridge.”

  “Never thought it was smart,” Ryan replied from his bike. “Only that it would work.”

  “Not yet it hasn’t!” Krysty cursed. “Millie and Jak are stuck!”

  The brown-and-green-patterned Hummer was in the middle of the destroyed trestle, its engine revving loudly, gears clashing as Mildred tried to rock the vehicle back and forth. The undercarriage was obviously caught on something.

  Tumbling over the embankment like blood-crazed lemmings, the stickies fell into the rushing water and started hooting as they clambered over the moving rubble. One of them jumped onto a timber, only to have the wooden beam flip over and smash it underwater. A red stain began to spread downriver from that point, but the other muties ignored their fallen brother to continue pursuit of the tasty twolegs.

  “Fireblast!” Ryan spit, starting to pull his blaster, then holstering it again. There were too many stickies, and he had a better idea. Climbing off the Harley, he went to the front of the black Hummer and disengaged the towline.

  “Cover me!” Ryan ordered, hopping off the bank.

  The man sank to his ankles in the soft black silt on the bottom of the shallows, and pulled his combat boots free with loud slurping sounds. The braided steel towline trailed loosely behind the man, Krysty feeding it along with her bare hands as Doc started firing the M-16 at the stickies, placing his shots with extreme care to try not to hit the other Hummer.

  Crawling onto a rock, Ryan jumped to a steel girder and started sliding closer to the trapped wag. When the beam began to move from his weight, Ryan grabbed on to a stanchion and took the ride until the girder started to dip into the water.

  Leaping forward with all of his strength, Ryan landed sprawling on the sinking pile of bricks under the trapped Hummer. From this position, he could see the cluster of twisted iron rod from inside the support columns of the bridge holding the wag prisoner. If the Hummer had been a civilian wag, it would have been pierced in a dozen spots, but the armored belly of the mil wag was undamaged. Just trapped like an impaled rat on a roasting stick.

  There came the ripping sound of an M-16 on full-auto as Ryan struggled to his feet and attached the towline to the steel ring on the front of the Hummer just below its winch. He tugged on the braided steel to make sure it was firmly secured, and a stickie appeared on the roof of the wag, hooting insanely and waving its arms.

  Drawing and firing in a single motion, Ryan blew out its throat, and the mutie sank to its knees, dark red blood gushing from the hideous wound.

  “In!” Jak ordered, throwing open the side door.

  Moving fast, Ryan dived inside just as the towline began to straighten across the watery destruction.

  “Hold on!” Mildred shouted as the Hummer jerked forward.

  But the wag only moved a few feet before stopping again.

  A stickie appeared at the window and Jak blew off its face with his Colt Magnum. Squeezing into the rear compartment, Ryan threw open the back window and started blowing hot lead into the inhuman horde wading through the rubble. Then he missed a mutie as the Hummer jounced forward once more, only to slide back a few feet to its original position.

  “Time leave!” Jak snarled, emptying the Colt and thumbing in fresh rounds. The opposite shore was only twenty feet away and looked as distant as the moon.

  A stickie rose from the water alongside Mildred, and the physician put a single round from her Czech ZKR revolver directly into its heart. With a terrible human moan, the mutant crumbled back into the river and disappeared.

  “One more fucking time!” she snarled, and gunned the big engine to the red line.

  Throwing the Hummer into reverse, Mildred slammed into a stickie, the body plastering along the chassis of the wag. When she could go no farther, Mildred waved at J.B. on the shore and threw the transmission into forward.

  Metal screeched and something bent under the Hummer as it slammed forward only to jerk to a halt and start to tilt sideways, heading for the river. Holding on for dear life, Ryan and Jak fired steadily out the windows now, the telltale boom of Doc’s LeMat mixing with the sharp crack of Krysty’s revolver.

  Slamming into reverse once more, Mildred heard the towline twang like a cord on a guitar from the tension, and felt her belly turn cold at the thought of it coming free to whip backward through the windshield like a scythe. Then something loudly snapped under the Hummer. The machine dropped a foot, all four tires dug into the loose bricks, sending them spraying out backward like a shotgun blast, and the war wag surged forward, free at last!

  Covered with dead muties, the camou-colored Hummer jounced and bucked through the submerged debris and barely managed to lurch onto the shoreline. As Mildred braked the machine to a frantic halt on solid ground, Krysty dashed to disengage the hook, and then J.B. hit the winch controls, reeling back the steel cable with a whizzing sound.

  More stickies were shambling from the river now, as Krysty ran back to the BMW and hopped onto the bike. She took the lead as the Hummer drove away from the river. In the back of the wag, Ryan scowled as the Harley was surrounded by stickies, then the wag went around a sandy hillock and it was gone from sight.

  “No going back now, I suppose.” Mildred sighed, flexing her sore hands.

  “Not that way, anyhow,” Ryan agreed, leaning back in his seat and carefully reloading.

  “Mebbe all fly home, eh?” Jak said half jokingly, rummaging in his pockets for more shells.

  Stopping a good distance from the river, the companions got out and used a few of the trading knives to hack the dead stickies off the chassis of the black Hummer. When they were down to just fingers and toes, J.B. poured a little condensed fuel on the oozing gobbets and burned them off. The smell was horrendous.

  Finished with their grisly task, the companions climbed back into their vehicles and drove off, each of them trying to think about what a stickie’s deadly hands could do to human flesh if they got a good hold.

  At first the driving through the grasslands was easy and the three vehicles made good speed. But after about an hour, the companions were forced to slow down as loose sand began covering the ground in larger and larger patches. Soon, the grass and weeds were gone and they found themselves rolling through a proper desert.

  Rising over the horizon came a mesa, the steep column of gray stone giving the barren vista an alien feel.

  “You sure we are going in the correct direction?” Doc asked, the blue swallow design on his handkerchief appearing to flutter as his words moved the cloth.

  Blinking the sweat from his eyes, J.B. glanced at the open compass on the seat between them. “Ten degrees off true north,” he said, switching his attention back to driving. “That was the mark for the explosion.

  “Then lay on, MacDuff,” Doc said, wiping his hands dry on his frilly shirt before cradling the assault rifle again. It was down to only five rounds now, but was still an impressive piece of hardware.

  J.B. shot him a look. “That another poem?” he asked.

  Beaming in delight, Doc said, “No, indeed! It is from a Scottish tale of murder and sex, madness and revenge.”

  With both hands on the wheel, J.B. shrugged. “Sounds good. Tell me some.”

  “With pleasure, John Barrymore! In fact, your own name has a theatrical connection to the story, that I shall elucidate shortly. It all begins on a dark and stormy night…”

  In the black Hummer, Mildred snorted a laugh. “Poor John.” She chuckled. “I can see Doc waving his arms about, so he must be reciting something. Probably the entire damn ‘Iliad.’”

  “Any good?” Jak asked, hugging the rapid-fire tight in his arms to try to keep out the dust.

  Shifting gears to climb a dune, Mildred started to speak, then paused and thought better of it. “Why, no,” she lied smoothly. “Boring as hell.”

  Not stupid, the teen accepted the rebuff and returned to looking out the dirty window at the endless terrain of windblown sand.

  As the cool air from the river was left behind, the heat of the sun started slowly building in spite of the heavy cloud cover. Distant thunder rumbled menacingly as the wind increased and the loose sand formed little dust eddies. Wiping their stinging eyes, J.B. and Mildred tried closing the windows and switching on the air conditioners. However, the old units only rattled and delivered warm air. With no choice, J.B. and Mildred cracked the windows again, and everybody tied handkerchiefs around their mouths and noses to keep out the swirling dust particles.

  Shrugging out of her bearskin coat, Krysty did the same, then also loosened her shirt and rolled up her sleeves to try to keep cool.

  The BMW’s engine had been running slightly warm since the redoubt, and the slower she went, the more the motorcycle struggled to maintain speed and keep up with the Hummers. The fuel was dropping at an almost noticeable rate, and the engine temp climbed dangerously high every time she paused to rest her arm, or wipe the sweat from her forehead.

  All around the three vehicles, the whispering dunes rose and fell like waves at sea, the rare cluster of cactus or large rock only serving to heighten the feeling of emptiness.

  Braking to a stop, Krysty raised a closed fist and the Hummers came to a halt. Turning her head, the woman sniffed and caught it again. Wood smoke. And something else.

  “This way!” she shouted through her makeshift mask, and sent the Beamer rolling forward.

  Going around a particularly tall sand dune, Krysty slowed as the she weaved through smaller dunes. Then she saw it. The burned wreckage of a smashed biplane partially embedded in the side of a sand dune. Braking to a halt, the woman waited until the two Hummers arrived and parked slightly apart from each other. For a few minutes the companions stayed with their vehicles and studied the area. There had obviously been some sort of a battle here, but it was impossible to tell what had happened.

 

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