Axler, James - Deathlands 14 - Dark Carnival

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/* /*]] */ /* /*]] */ d14 Dark Carnival The mutie gator clamped its teeth around Ryan's ankles and jerked

him into the river The creature had incredible power, flailing him around like a toy in the hands of an

excited child. The one-eyed man struggled to hold his breath, but it was impossible.

Twice he managed to get fingers on the butt of his SIG-Sauer blaster, but each time the gator twisted him

around, dashing him facedown into the shingle, making him lose his grip. Ryan's third attempt was for his

panga, and this time he was lucky.

But the cleaver, with its broad, heavy blade, was suited for slashing and hacking, rather than thrusting.

Though Ryan tried to use it, the edge simply slid off the great knobbed scales of the giant reptile..

Battling against a shrinking supply of air, Ryan could feel his strength beginning to slip away.

And he was, slowly and surely, being dragged toward the deeper waters offshore

Dark Carnival

14 in the Deathlands series

James Axler

A GOLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

TORONTO NEW YORK LONDON PARIS

AMSTERDAM -STOCKHOLM -HAMBURG

ATHENS MILAN TOKYO SYDNEY

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After twenty-five years of magic and mystery, wonder and love, this one is for Elizabeth

First edition January 1992 ISBN 0-373-62514-6 DARK CARNIVAL

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.

It is a profound mistake to underestimate the lure and attraction of a great evil. The highway of history is

lined with the whitened bones of those who have fallen into that error.

The Abyss Within The Skull Thomas Wun

Chapter One

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"It's time to go, son," Ryan Cawdor said, holding out a hand.

For several heartbeats the boy didn't move, only stood and stared at the one-eyed man.

"You're Dean?" Ryan asked.

"And your name's Ryan Cawdor?"

The child's voice was calm, his breath billowing in the cold, damp air. The noise of death and fighting

was all around them.

Ryan knew that his friends, J. B. Dix, Doc Tanner, Krysty Wroth and Mildred Wyeth, would have

reached the shingle beach of the Hudson River by now, near the ravaged ville of Newyork. They'd be

waiting for him to join up with them so that they could escape in the recce wag.

"Time's one thing we don't have, son," he said. "Time for talk later. Now we gotta go."

"You my father?"

"Yeah, that's what they tell me."

"Truly?"

"Yeah."

Ryan had never been a man of limitless patience. Right now the boy was pushing things way beyond the

limits.

"Don't suppose you got my knife? Green handle?"

"I got it." A short quarrel from a crossbow splintered against the stone wall just above Ryan's head, and he

heard a guttural voice bellowing out commands. One of the scalies' leaders was trying to restore some

order.

"Dean," he growled. "Now."

Finally the boy held out a hand, sticky with fresh-spilled blood, and grasped Ryan's fingers. Together

father and son sprinted into the arched tunnel that wound its way toward the river.

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THE BROKEN FRAGMENTS of fading moonlight had disappeared by the time J.B. emerged past the

corpses of the scalie guards. A frail snow was falling, driven on a strong northeasterly wind. The shingle

was dusted white, and the waves off the river tumbled and hissed on the gently sloping stretch of beach.

"Wag still there?" Mildred asked, panting.

"Can't see. You make it, Krysty?"

She held a hand above her eyes, trying to look a little to the side of where she thought their vehicle might

be. It was a trick that Ryan had taught her, and it generally worked. But the sleeting flakes of snow

pattered in her face, making it impossible to see anything.

"No. We wait here for Ryan?"

"Perhaps if we were to remove ourselves to the beginning of that broken pier, we might be better able to

provide him with any covering fire he might require."

"Good thinking, Doc," J.B. said. "All of us trying to scramble up there in dark and ice, and something'd go

wrong."

"I'll wait here," Krysty stated calmly. "Just reloaded my blaster. The rest of you go out there and keep

watch for us."

They'd been together long enough to know better than to waste time arguing with the flame-haired woman

when she used that tone of voice. With J.B. in the lead, they vanished into the Stygian blackness.

Krysty held the silvered P-7A13 Heckler amp; Koch in her frozen right hand, feeling all the better for the

thirteen fresh rounds of 9 mm ammo in the mag.

She knew that the others would be reloading their own weapons, preparing for the charging pursuit that

would inevitably come from the enraged scalies. Krysty had enough confidence in Ryan to believe that

he'd come out of the tunnel ahead of any chasing muties.

She flattened herself against the wall of rock, pistol in hand, waiting. Something was nagging at her

"seeing" sense, but too much of her mind was devoted to the immediate present. Still, a small part of her

brain was whispering "Danger."

Amplified by the acoustically perfect shape of the tunnel, the dreadful sounds of dying were clearly

audible. Screams, made high and thin, squeezed past the half-closed sec doors. Twice there was the noise

of a gunshot, followed by what sounded like one of the scalies roaring orders.

Krysty put her head to one side, straining to hear what was going on, imagining that she could hear the

clattering of Ryan's steel-tipped combat boots striking sparks off the stones of the wide corridor.

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"Gaia, help him," she whispered, her breath frosting the air in front of her face.

RYAN REALIZED how vulnerable they'd all be if a concerted attack from the scalies should hit them out

in the open, on the crumbling, slippery jetty. Against his better judgment he stopped halfway to the steel

doors, reaching for the spare caseless rounds for his assault rifle. He gestured for the boy to stand still and

wait for him while he reloaded.

Dean hesitated, looking back toward the swelling babble of noise and raw menace, then ahead into the

unknowable darkness.

"There's friends outside," Ryan told him as he bent over the blaster. "Best you go ahead and join them."

"No. Want to stay here." There was a long pause before he added, "With you. Here."

"When we're out of this, we'll talk about doing like you're told. Can't argue now."

Even as he readied the G-12 for action, a part of Ryan's mind strayed to the ten-year-old boy at his sidethe

son that he'd never been aware existed, had only known about for a couple of days, had only met ninety

seconds ago.

"You chilled all those scalies. Rona said you were the meanest son of a bitch killer she ever saw in her

life."

Ryan could hear feet advancing toward them from the main area of the scalies' base, shuffling along as

though the muties were trying to move quietly.

"Dean, keep your mouth tight shut," he hissed, "and do exactly what I say."

"Sure." In the gloom Ryan caught a flicker of light from the deep-set eyes and a nod of the curly head.

"Pass that door. Go on. I'm with you." Both of them backed away, around the gentle curve of the passage,

reaching the sec-steel exit and edging through it. Ryan considered the possibility of trying to lock it or

wedge it against their pursuers.

A brace of feathered arrows thunked against the other side of the door as he hesitated, making his mind

up.

He took the boy's skinny arm and heaved him across the open space, passing the bodies of the butchered

sentries, out into the freezing air.

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KKYSTY HAD HER FINGER on the trigger. The noise of the water breaking on the beach was louder,

making it hard to hear whether anyone was coming out. And the darkness had become almost total.

She sensed movement behind her, between the tumbled rocks of the old wharf and the Hudson. She

whirled, her right wrist braced in her left hand in the approved shootist's stance.

Whatever had caught her eye was gone. Or had never been there in the first place. Or had been a length of

sodden driftwood, floating sullen and partly submerged in the shallows.

As she turned back, a figure emerged from the mouth of the tunnel.

Two figures.

"Ryan?"

"Yeah. Got the Dean."

"The boy?"

"Sure."

"Scalies coming?"

"Reached the sec door. Where's the others? Everyone make it?"

"Yeah. Out toward the wag. Cover if we need it."

The snow was beginning to come down with a real vengeance, masking everything, dropping visibility to

a couple of yards.

Ryan looked around and drew a deep, shuddering breath, realizing how much the past forty minutes or so

had taken out of himthe tension of entering the strange, dreamlike headquarters of the scalies, picking his

way between the sleeping muties and the chained prisoners, and the startling appearance of his lost son

and the brief, bloody brawl.

There were a million questions that brimmed in Ryan's brain, questions about Sharona Carson, Dean's

mother, about the whole ten years of the boy's life. And smaller questions, like how come the boy hadn't

been chained? If he had been, then Ryan would already be cooling meat inside the cloistered caverns.

"Let's go," he said.

"Where?" The boy was staring out into the blackness, blurred by the whirling blizzard. "You got a boat

out there?"

"Yeah. Come on."

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Krysty led the way toward the jetty, picking cautious steps across the slippery, icy pebbles. Dean followed

her, with Ryan bringing up the rear.

The woman skirted a drifting log, stumbled and nearly fell. Dean also stepped around the length of dark

wood.

Ryan was passing the sodden hunk of driftwood when it opened its gaping jaws and made a hissing lunge.

Chapter Two

On dry, firm earth, Ryan's razor-honed reflexes would have carried him clear of the attacking mutie

alligator. But the beach sloped, and the tiny stones shifted and slithered under his combat boots. As he

started to fall, he threw the Heckler amp; Koch G-12 toward Krysty.

Then the gigantic saurian, well over twenty feet long, clamped its overlapping teeth around his ankles and

jerked him off balance.

Fairly early in their relationship, Jak Lauren had told Ryan all about gators. The albino teenager had been

born and raised in the festering bayous of Louisiana, spending much of his time hiding out or hunting

among the gnarled roots of the mangroves, the demesne of the big crocodiles and alligators.

"They'll grab hold then roll you, try drag you underwater. Once got you in swamp, roll again and keep

you under. Take and store you in tunnel. Like larder. Fight quick or finished."

There was a part of Ryan's brain that recalled that distant conversation, even while he was flailing in the

freezing shingle, hands scrabbling for a grip among the whispering stones.

The huge gator was doing just as Jak Lauren had said it would.

Rolling.

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If Ryan hadn't gone with it, the weight and pressure would have dislocated his knee and hip.

He heard Krysty scream his name and also a higher, younger voice. Then his head splashed into the

shallows, and he was deafened by the crashing of the water.

Pressure pressed below both knees, but Ryan managed to kick one leg free. The alligator had incredible

power, flailing him around like a toy in the hands of a maniac child. The one-eyed man struggled to hold

his breath, but it was impossible. Some of the time his head was in the cold, snowy air. Much of the time

it was beneath the freezing, bubbling river.

He could hear a raging, snarling sound filling his head, but he wasn't aware that it was his own voice

making the noise.

Twice he managed to get his fingers on the butt of the SIG-Sauer blaster on his hip, but each time the

gator twisted him around, dashing him facedown into the shingle, making him lose his grip again. Ryan's

third attempt was for his panga, and this time he was lucky.

The hilt was in his fingers and he clung to it, literally, for the dearness of living.

But the cleaver, with its broad, heavy blade, was suited for slashing and hacking rather than thrusting.

Though Ryan tried to use it, the edge simply slid off the great knobbed scales of the reptile.

Battling against a shrinking supply of air, Ryan could feel his strength beginning to slip away.

And he was, slowly and surely, being dragged toward the deeper waters offshore.

AS SOON AS the gigantic creature erupted from the dark pebbles, Krysty had turned and drawn her

pistol. She saw the futility of it and scrabbled for the Heckler amp; Koch rifle that Ryan had thrown away

as he fell. But even with that in her hands, she realized she could do nothing with it. All she could see was

a blurred, tangled shape, flailing and splashing in the bubbling whiteness at the edge of the water.

Dean was at her side, staring intently at the fight.

"It'll drag him under and drown him," he shouted to her.

"I know."

The boy at her side pulled a tiny knife from his belt, with a blade no longer than a man's forefinger.

"I'll do it," he said. "Save Ryan."

"No, you'll only" But the child evaded her grab, ducking under her hand. He ran the few paces to the edge

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of the Hudson and jumped in.

"Oh, Gaia!"

Simultaneously the gator gave a great swirling thrust with its tail and stubby hind legs, and dragged Ryan

completely below the surface. There were a few bubbles, and then the dark, oily water became sullen and

still.

AS THE RIVER CLOSED over his head, Ryan managed a last, frantic, sucking breath, filling his lungs as

he was drawn inexorably under. Holding the hilt of the panga in both his hands, he tried repeatedly to stab

downward, toward the long, clutching snout that held him fast. But he was blinded, tossed and turned,

unable to work out just where the gator's eyes were. The blade jarred as it struck bone and armored hide,

but there was no hint of the creature being harmed.

A cold blackness began to crawl across the inside of Ryan's skull.

Another of the creatures began to attack him. Ryan tried to jab the cleaver at it, feeling its claws tangling

in his hair, but he was too weakened. There was the illusion that the clamping jaws had released his leg

and that he was being heaved upward toward the air.

Then his head broke the surface of the water, and a great surge of air whooshed into his strained lungs.

But his hair was still locked by something that was pulling at him.

"Swim, Ryan!" commanded a small, thin voice.

"What?" he croaked,

" Swim! Before any others smell blood and come in after us."

"Yeah," he replied, beginning to kick feebly, hoping that Dean was leading them in the right direction. In

the midnight blackness he had totally lost touch with where the shore was.

The boy still grabbed him by the shoulder, his skinny legs pumping at the water, driving them toward the

band of deeper blackness behind them. Ryan suddenly felt his feet kick something, and for a moment he

came close to losing control and screaming. Then he realized that it was a chunk of long-buried rabble

and that he was now in less than four feet of water, able to stand and stagger out onto a sloping beach of

sliding pebbles.

"Fireblast!" he panted. "Thanks for that, son. What'd you do?"

"Stabbed it in the eye. Lost that knife. Stuck in the socket. You still got my own knife?"

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Ryan wiped the saltwater from his eye. "Sure. Give it you once we're safe in the wag. Which way do we

go? That way?" He pointed north, guessing that the struggle would have carried them down the stream

rather than against the flow.

"Yeah. Not far. You walk all right?"

"Sure." He turned and glanced back at the river, peering through the drifting snow. Something exploded

into the air fifty yards out, a long, sinuous shape, twisting as it leaped clear out of the water. He heard a

long, hissing exhalation of breath, rage and blinded agony.

As quickly as it had appeared, the wounded alligator splashed into the dark water and vanished.

THOUGH ETERNITIES SEEMED to have crawled by when he was under the surface of the Hudson,

Ryan was surprised to find that they'd gone less than a hundred yards south, not even far enough to be

beyond the second of the long jetties.

In between the snow flurries he could now see the yawning mouth of the tunnel that led into the scalies'

headquarters. And, at the edge of the river, stood the figure of Krysty Wroth.

"Hey!" he shouted, but the wind carried his voice away.

The woman's mutie instinct reacted to his approach, and she turned to face him, seeing the slight figure of

the boy at his side.

As they drew near, she ran and clasped Ryan to her, trying to draw Dean into her embrace. But the boy

pulled away, uncomfortable.

"You did brilliantly, kid," she said.

"Don't call me that," he muttered. "Not a kid. Don't like it."

"Sure. You both all right?"

"Thanks to the boy," Ryan told her. "Got an ace on the line and stabbed that big mother in the eye and

saved me. Did good."

"Better get out to the wag. J.B'll be worrying where we are."

Ryan nodded. He shivered as the wind began to penetrate the soaking clothes and was aware of the boy

trembling at his side. "Sure. Don't want them coming back to look for us."

"How about the scalies?" Dean asked. "Bound to be after us real soon."

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