Axler, James - Deathlands 09 - Red Equinox

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Axler,_James_-_DeathLands_9_Red_Equinox

The door to the hut burst open, sending Ryan tumbling across the floor

A shaft of light pierced the gloom as the door flew off its hinges, but the pale

rectangle was swiftly blotted out.

The man who filled the doorway stood at least eight feet tall. He'd stooped to enter

the hut, and his head now scraped the rafters. His rad-ruined face showed all the

intelligence of a fencepost and all the friendliness of a cornered rattlesnake.

The mutie bared his teeth, flexed his hands and reached toward the invaders of his

squalid domain. He roared, and the sound was accompanied by billowing waves

of stinking breath that made Ryan wince.

"Mine!" Jak shrilled, recovering his balance and launch-ing himself at the human

monolith.

The mutie never moved. Feet planted wide apart, he swatted the boy away from

him as if he were merely an importunate gnat.

Ryan snarled his rage and squeezed the trigger of his P-226. The baffle silencer

did its stuff. There was a muf-fled sound, and a thin trace of smoke trickled from

the barrel.

When the Russian didn't even rock on his heels, Ryan felt the first tremor of

unease....

Red Equinox

#9 in the Deathland series

James Axler

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Axler,_James_-_DeathLands_9_Red_Equinox

A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON • PARIS • AMSTERDAM •

STOCKHOLM • HAMBURG • ATHENS • MILAN • TOKYO • SYDNEY

Everyone needs a hand to guide,

an arm to support.

A light in the darkness

and a best friend.

This one, as before and for always,

with all of my loving,

is for Liz.

First edition June 1989

ISBN 0-373-62509-X

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this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other

means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and

recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without

the permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don

Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the

author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or

names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown

to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

® are Trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office

and in other countries.

Printed in U.S.A.

* * * * * *

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery

inside an enigma.

—Winston Churchill, October 1, 1939

Chapter One

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Western wind, when wilt thou blow,

That small rain down can rain?

DOC TANNER WAS truly happy. The assorted horrors that had blighted his

mind and brought him teetering to the far edge of madness had faded away from

him like the dew in the morning.

Oh, if my love were in my arms,

And I in my bed again.

It was a fine summer afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska, in the year 1896.

He was twenty-eight years old and had been married for just a few weeks over

five years.

"Such happiness, Emily," he said in his rich, deep voice, smiling at her.

His wife smiled back and reached out to him, squeezing his hand between her

fingers. She wore a dress of flowered gingham, with a bonnet trimmed in white

lace. Her high button boots had picked up shreds of dry grass and seed from the

meadow where they'd come for their picnic.

The children played on a patterned blanket close by. Two-year-old Rachel,

toddling bravely on stumpy little legs, laughed as she vainly reached out to

capture a bright but-terfly. Her baby brother, Jolyon, approaching his first

birthday, was content to lie on his back and kick his bare feet at the soaring golden

ball that floated in the perfect blue sky. An angled parasol protected his sensitive

skin from the direct heat.

Oh, if my love were in my arms,

And I in my bed again.

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Emily had a beautiful voice, a trained contralto that thrilled the air.

The remains of their meal lay spread over the damask cloth: some slices of honey-

roasted ham; three different jars of pickles; half a new-baked loaf, and some butter

wrapped in damp muslin to help keep it cool; a bowl of lettuce and tomatoes,

wilting a little now; and a crock containing sev-eral different cheeses.

"You always like cheese, don't you, dearest?" Doc said. "I mean that you used to

like it, didn't you?"

Emily turned to him, her smile sliding away into bewil-derment. In the distance

Doc could hear the faint sound of rumbling thunder. Clouds were gathering along

the hori-zon of the prairie, threatening a storm. The horse that stood patiently in

the shade of a clump of live oaks, freed from the traces of the wagon, whickered

softly.

"Why do you say that I used to like it, my darling? I still do. Most truly."

Doc blinked. For a moment his vision blurred and he shook his head. His wife's

face, better known even than his own, seemed to shimmer as though a fog had

dropped be-tween them.

"Emily…" he began, but a clap of thunder drowned out his words. The clouds

were coming swiftly toward them, changing color from white to leaden gray to a

peculiar pinkish-purple hue. They resembled a livid bruise, he thought.

"The children, beloved," Emily said. Yes, it was Emily. It was her.

"Indeed. Let us take them to the carriage and get shelter from the storm."

"I'll gather everything up. Ready for next time." She looked at him, and it was as

though a great dagger of smooth ice had been thrust into his heart. "Because there

will never be another time, Theo, my dear."

"I know that. By the three…! I fear that I disremember what."

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All around him, the grass was growing, sprouting faster, so that baby Jolyon had

already vanished. And Rachel's head barely showed above the waving tips.

"Oh, help me, Papa, for I am frightened," she cried in a lisping, squeaky voice.

Western wind, when wilt thou blow,

That small rain down can rain?

But the voice wasn't that of Emily. It was a different, younger voice. Doc knew

that he recognized it.

"Quickly, my dearest!"

"Help me with the children, Emily. I can't see them. The grass is so long that they

have simply vanished from sight."

Smoke.

Now he could smell smoke.

Behind him the horse whinnied and tossed its head, snapping the bridle and

galloping away, eyes rolling, hooves pounding like thunder.

"Emily! Emily!"

Doc dropped to his knees, fumbling in the grass, feeling it moving over his skin

like sentient human hair. He couldn't feel the children, but he could hear them,

giggling together, their bubbling laughter seeming to come from all around.

The smell of smoke was growing ever stronger, and now he could actually hear

the crackling of flames.

His wife was no longer to be seen. Through the mount-ing horror, Doc remained

calm. He stood on the tips of his toes to try to spot Rachel and Jolyon, but now the

grass was as high as his shoulders. The grove of live oaks had gone, and in their

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place stood a mound of earth, with a circle of stone pillars at its heart. And there

stood—

"Emily!" he shouted, voice cracking. He started to run toward her, recognizing the

mane of golden hair that hung to her waist, the bright crimson skirt, halfway up

her long thighs, the high scarlet boots and the sound of tiny spurs, like silver bells,

tinkling as she walked.

Flames, dazzling yellow and orange, were swooping across the skyline, exploding

through the tops of the grass.

The wagon, horse, children…all were gone. All that was left was Emily.

"Emily?" Doc called. "Emily!"

"Lori," Doc said. "Oh, if my love were in my arms." He reached out as he

stumbled toward her.

The tall teenager turned at his shout, beginning the fa-miliar, gentle smile that had

brought him such happiness for so many months. They were nearly close enough

to touch.

Smoke billowed into Doc's face, blinding him and mak-ing him cough, but he felt

his arms close around Lori.

Emily.

Lori.

He opened his eyes again, his ears filling with the roar of the fire, his skin

scorching, his clothes beginning to smol-der from the heat.

Doc experienced the illusion that his body was shrink-ing, becoming brittle and

frail. His bones were layered in dust, his skin tight and dry.

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He was holding Emily, Lori, Emily, Lori, closely to him. Doc began to smile

reassuringly at her, but the smile died, stillborn. His mouth filled with bile as

bitter as wormwood and he began to scream.

Doc held a log of charred, blackened wood, shaped like a human being, smoking,

with parts of the flesh still glow-ing like tiny rubies. The scorched ends of

whitened bone protruded here and there through the roasted meat. A stubble of

hair remained on the seared skull, like a corn-field after the fires of autumn have

cleansed it. There were no eyes in the bubbling sockets, and the mouth was a

sigh-ing cave of agonizing death.

"My love is in my arms," a voice whispered in Doc's ear.

He dropped the corpse, stepping back from it, and saw that it still lived. The

burned branches of arms and legs still moved in feeble, uncoordinated motion,

like a willow near a shaded pool as the breeze touches it.

"Die," Doc begged.

But it wouldn't.

It was even struggling to rise, fingerless hands reaching plaintively toward him in

a mockery of prayer.

"For the love of God, Montresor," Doc moaned, wav-ing helplessly at the creature

with his swordstick, the silver lion's head gripped firmly in his gnarled fist.

The mouth opened. "And I in my bed again," it croaked.

Doc Tanner began to scream, and the noise woke the other five people who lay

sprawled around the mat-trans chamber.

Chapter Two

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RYAN CAWDOR OPENED his eye.

The walls of the gateway they'd jumped from had been dull gray armaglass. That

redoubt had been situated in the quake-torn remnants of what had once been

known, nearly a hundred years ago, as California, way back before the Great

Madness when the skies grew dark and a civilization died. A world had almost

died, as well. The surface of the earth was now dotted with no more than small,

inbred, isolated settlements, often with a high rate of bizarre mu-tations.

On the far side of the six-sided room, Doc Tanner was sobbing to himself very

quietly, like a tiny cornered kitten. His mouth sagged open and a thread of spittle

dangled into his lap. One hand still gripped the silver lion's head hilt of his ebony

swordstick. Ryan could see that the old man had been crying, with gobbets of

tears clinging to the gray stubble on his cheeks and chin.

The sudden, shocking death of Doc's girlfriend, Lori Quint, had horrified them all.

The rushing fire had dashed all hope of a rescue. There had been no chance even

of a decent burial. Bearing in mind the fragile state of Doc Tanner's mind, it

wasn't out of the question that he'd slipped straight into a catatonic madness.

Ryan sighed, massaging his temples with his fingers. Making a jump was like

having some crazed mutie with iron gloves rummaging around inside your brain.

Ryan had once been fed some jolt that contained a quantity of synthe-sized spin.

His head had felt like it was being sucked dry and sandblasted all at the same

time. Using a mat-trans gateway was much worse.

He coughed and reached down automatically for his G-12 caseless Heckler &

Koch assault rifle, fingers strok-ing its smooth body. Ryan shuffled himself to a

more up-right position, wincing as the butt of his handblaster dug into his hip.

To clear his scrambled mind he ran through a check on the specifications of the

pistol.

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"Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft Sauer of Ecken-forde, model .226, 9 mm.

Overall length is 7.62 inches. Barrel length is 4.41 inches. Weight, loaded, is

25.52 ounces. Fifteen rounds. Push-button release."

"You didn't mention the built-in baffle silencer," J. B. Dix called from the

opposite side of the chamber.

"I was coming to it." Ryan grinned at the diminutive armorer.

"Sure you were. Rad-blast it! These jumps still make me feel like throwing up."

J.B. carefully unfolded his wire-rimmed glasses from a pocket of his worn leather

jacket and wiped them on his sleeve. He held them up to the ceil-ing lights then

placed them on his nose. He looked at Doc, who sat next to him.

The old man's eyes were closed and he was still weeping, but the mewing sounds

of his distress had ceased. J.B. caught Ryan's eye, and he tapped his own forehead

mean-ingfully. "Could be Lori's chilling's pushed him into the back room for

keeps."

"Could be."

Krysty Wroth, next in line to Ryan, was also awake. She brushed a hand through

her fiery mane of scarlet hair and sniffed. "Thought I was going to float around in

the dark forever. There has to be a better way of traveling a thou-sand miles in a

couple of seconds." She looked across at Doc. "Hope you aren't right, J.B., about

him. The old-timer's hold on what's real and what isn't was never too, strong. Lori

dying like that… It's enough we got a sick freezie on our hands without Doc going

slack-mouthed on us."

The freezie was lying on his back next to Krysty. A thin, trickle of blood seeped

from a corner of his lips, through the black stubble of his sprouting beard. His

horn-rimmed glasses lay on the floor on one of the glowing metal disks.

Ryan Cawdor looked at the man.

When Richard Neal Ginsberg had gone into the cryo center in October of the year

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Axler,_James_-_DeathLands_9_Red_EquinoxThedoortothehutburstopen,sendingRyantumblingacrossthefloorAshaftoflightpiercedthegloomasthedoorflewoffitshinges,but\thepalerectanglewasswiftlyblottedout.Themanwhofilledthedoorwaystoodatleasteightfeettall.He'dstoo\pedtoenterthehut,andhisheadnowscrapedtherafters....

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