James Axler - Deathlands 004 - Crater Lake

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It was unlike anyplace they had ever known.

Krysty lay on her back, staring around her, relaxing on a soft couch of deep green

moss. "What you said, Doc, about how it used to be… was it really like this?"

"Oh, indeed. I swear it was like this. Of course there were cities. Great wens that

soured the land and skies, blighting the environment. But there were billions of

acres of unspoiled wilderness."

They were silent for a moment, each locked into his or her own thoughts. Ryan

felt Krysty's hand on his. "Why keep on moving, lover? Why not stop here?"

Ryan breathed in, trying to find the words that would be an answer. "I guess… I

don't know."

"There's valleys around here. We could build us a home."

"Us? Who's that, Krysty?"

"You. Me. All of us. We got the skills. Mebbe we could try and farm some of this

green land. Raise a family."

Ryan remained silent for a long time. Then he spoke. "One day, Krysty."

"One day, lover?"

"Yeah. One day." But not yet.

Crater Lake

JAMES AXLER

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A COLD EAGLE BOOK FROM WORLDWIDE

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON • PARIS

AMSTERDAM • STOCKHOLM • HAMBURG

ATHENS -MILAN • TOKYO • SYDNEY

Cui dono lepidum novum libellum Arido modo pumice expolitum?

The question was asked by Catullus in 54 B.C. And the answer is to Randall

Toye, with thanks for all his enthusiasm and guidance thus far.

First edition August 1987 ISBN 0-373-62504-

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

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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.

The Worldwide Library trademarks, consisting of the words GOLD EAGLE and

the portrayal of an eagle, and the Worldwide trademark, consisting of the word

WORLDWIDE in which the letter "O" is represented by a depiction of a globe,

are trademarks of Worldwide Library.

Printed in Canada

I, a stranger, and afraid, in a world I never made.

-A. E. Housman

Chapter One

JAK LAUREN'S EYES, pale pink, snapped open.

A fearsome stab of pain jerked through his narrow skull, making him moan and

close his eyes again. His fingers curled, nails digging into the palms of his hands.

As he moved, leaning against the thick glass walls of the chamber, the tiny shards

of razored steel sewn into his clothes sparkled brightly.

"Was blind, but now I see." Why did the words of the old hymn come floating

back into his mind at that moment?

He cautiously opened his eyes again, screwing them up against the bright light.

There was a pattern of raised disks of polished metal that glowed faintly, the

image fading even as he looked at it. The smoked glass walls were deep crimson.

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That wasn't right. They'd been blue. Blue. He held on to that fact. His head felt

awful. Worse than the time—it had been his tenth birthing day just over four years

back—when his father had been burrowing. Digging into the cellars of some of

the derelict houses on the edges of West Lowellton, near Lafayette, in what had

once been Louisiana, his father had found a bottle of something called Southern

Comfort—a ribbed bottle of clear glass with a golden cap. He'd given it to Jak.

The warm liquor had tasted of peaches and summer, and it had burned his throat.

He'd drunk nearly the whole bottle and then been monstrously sick.

But that hadn't been anything compared to this awful swirling feeling. It was as if

someone had sucked his brain from the caverned chambers of his skull, leaving

only an echoing hollow, or pumped his brain like a pink-gray slurry through the

twisted copper tubes of a moonshiner's still, then spat the results back into his

skull again.

"How're you doing, Whitey?"

Jak leaned over and groaned. He felt like throwing up. His long hair, purest white,

trailed like plumes of lace over his shoulders. He drew in deep breaths, fighting

for control. He did not want to show any sign of weakness in front of his six new

friends.

"Not friends," he whispered to himself. Friends would betray you. Or they could

be used to try to make you turn traitor. "Companions" was better.

"What's that?"

He didn't realize he'd spoken out loud.

"Cold," he said, seeing the fog of his breath. Back home in Louisiana he'd never

seen that. Never seen snow or felt the bite of frost. He hadn't really believed that

this gateway place would actually work and transmit them somewhere else.

"Yeah. Just sit back and relax. It's a shit feeling, but it'll pass."

"First time's the worst, Jak." That was a woman's voice.

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He risked opening his eyes again, keeping his head perfectly still. The armored

glass felt cool against his skin. The others were strewn around the room in varying

stages of recovery from the mat-trans jump.

Jak's eyes first focused on the girl called Lori. At six feet she topped him by at

least nine inches. Her long blond hair tumbled over her shoulders and across the

bright red satin blouse that clung to the soft swell of her breasts. The boy's eyes

were caught by the nipples, roused by the bitter cold in the gateway, peaking

under the thin material. Her long thighs shone beneath the short maroon suede

skirt. Jak knew that Lori was only a couple of years older than he was. He'd

admired how she bore herself in combat situations, despite wearing the most

absurd boots he'd ever seen. They were made of crimson leather, well over her

knees, and had incredibly high heels. He had watched with disbelief when she'd

run like a gazelle in those boots. Now she moved uneasily, the tiny silver spurs on

each heel ringing like bells. At her belt she wore a pearl-handled .22-caliber

Walther PPK pistol.

Next to her, one arm protectively around the girl's shoulders, was the oldest of the

party, Dr. Theophilus Tanner. He looked around seventy, with grizzled hair and a

graying stubble on his cadaverous jaw. He was tall and skinny and wore cracked

knee boots splattered with Louisiana swamp mud. The pale blue denim shirt and

stained frock coat that he wore seemed like relics, something out of an old, old

picture book from well before the Big War. A kerchief with a blue swallow's-eye

design protruded from the top pocket of his coat, and a battered stovepipe hat was

beside him on the floor.

"I trust you are feeling a little more like rejoining the land of the living, my young

friend?" the old man asked in his rich, mellow voice.

"Better," Jak said, nodding.

Doc patted Lori companionably on the arm, dislodging his walking cane from his

lap. It was made of polished ebony, with a carved lion's head in silver at its top.

Jak knew, because Finnegan had told him, that the stick concealed a rapier-thin

sword. The old man also carried a bizarre double-barreled cap and ball pistol

called a Le Mat.

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Finnegan winked at Jak. The short fat man looked pale from the jump, beads of

sweat dappling his sallow forehead. "Way weird, huh, kid?"

Jak nodded. He envied the way Finn dressed, though it did make him look a bit

like a sec man—matching sweater and pants in dark blue and high black combat

boots with steel-capped toes. One of the things that Jak Lauren knew a lot about

was killing and all the ways of doing it. His father had often told him that killing

was a craft like any other. And, like any other, it had to be learned.

Jak had learned it well.

In a soft leather sheath on his hip, Finnegan carried a long butcher's cleaver, its

edge honed until it sang. In his belt was a 9 mm Model 92 Beretta. Finn's chubby

hands cradled a Heckler & Koch submachine gun. Able to fire fifty rounds on

either single, triple or continuous, it also sported a trim silencer. Jak had seen

blaster catalogs in the undamaged houses where he'd been raised and recognized

the weapon as a development from the HK54A2 from the late nineties.

Jak pushed against the wall, trying to stand up. The man next around the circle

shook his head. "Give it time."

J. B. Dix, the Armorer, never used four words when three would be enough.

J.B. was the calmest, quietest man Jak Lauren had ever met. Lightly built, he

weighed not much more than Jak's own one-twenty. Around forty years old, with

a thin face and a yellowish complexion, he wore rimless glasses and habitually

sported a battered fedora. Jak noticed he had the trick of never watching you when

you expected it and always watching you when you weren't ready.

In a handmade canvas sling at his waist, he carried a mini-Uzi, complemented by

a Steyr AUG 5.6 mm handgun on his hip. Jak suspected, though he hadn't seen

any evidence of it, that J.B. also had a variety of hidden knives and other weapons

about his person, perhaps under his leather jacket and nondescript pants.

"My first jump I thought I was going to die," a woman's voice said.

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"Know what you mean, Krysty," J.B. replied, managing a wan smile.

Krysty Wroth scared the shit out of Jak. She was also tall, close to six feet, with a

great body that fueled his adolescent fantasies. She had piercing green eyes and

the brightest, thickest red hair the boy had ever encountered. Several times since

their first meeting, he'd almost sworn the hair had had a bizarre life of its own, the

vermilion fronds swaying gently in the breeze when there'd been no wind at all.

Krysty also had the power of seeing. He knew that. She could "feel" what was

going to happen. Not like a full doomie, but enough to give a distant early

warning of trouble. Also she had staggeringly good hearing and vision. Added to

the fact that on occasion she was capable of feats of almost superhuman strength,

it was enough to scare anyone.

She was sitting, knees drawn up to her chest, wearing khaki overalls tucked into a

pair of beautiful western boots, which were made of dark blue calf with inlaid

falcons in silver leather. The toes of the boots were chiseled silver points, making

them both attractive and potentially lethal. She wore a holster that contained a

silvered Heckler & Koch P7A-13 pistol that fired nine-millimeter rounds.

"Back with us, Jak?" she said, smiling at him. "By Gaia, but I shall never forget

my first jump! Felt like my head was still a thousand miles behind me."

Jak nodded, pushing up until he was standing. The room swayed about him, and

he staggered, nearly falling. With an effort he retained his balance.

"Don't push it, Jak," urged the sixth and last member of the group, the leader,

Ryan Cawdor.

Ever since their first meeting, Jak Lauren had felt instinctively that Ryan Cawdor

was a man he could follow. In the swamps he'd been leader, despite his youth,

because nobody else killed as well as he did. Ryan Cawdor was something else.

Jak stared across the gateway mat-trans chamber at him. Ryan was stretched out

on the floor, feet crossed, looking not terribly uncomfortable. He was the tallest in

the party, about a foot taller than the white-haired boy, and lean-built, with broad

shoulders and narrow hips. His hair was a mat of tight black curls, spreading over

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the white fur collar of his long coat of treated skins. Around his neck was a white

silk scarf. Finn had once told Jak that there were lead weights in each end of the

scarf that turned it into an excellent garrote.

The face was thin with high cheekbones. On the right side a long scar ran from the

mouth to the corner of the eye, which was a chilling pale blue. The left eye was

gone, the raw, weeping socket concealed by a leather patch. Finn had told Jak that

Ryan's own brother had been responsible for the wound, but he didn't believe the

fat man. Finnegan didn't always tell the whole truth.

Ryan wore a brown shirt and brown pants, with the bottoms slit so that they could

slide easily over his combat boots. His right hand rested on the butt of a Heckler

& Koch G-12 caseless fifty-shot automatic rifle with night-scope and silencer.

Ryan, like Finn, wore a blade at his belt. But instead of a cleaver he carried a long

steel panga, which was as broad as a machete. From the look of it, a strong man

could behead an ox in a single stroke.

"You stare any harder at me, son, and you're going t'bore a hole through me." The

words were said lightly, but Jak got the hint.

"Sorry, Ryan. Was looking at your handblaster."

The one-eyed man took the pistol out of his belt and lobbed it across the small

room. Jak caught it easily in his right hand and studied it.

"Haven't seen one like this," he said. "SIG-Sauer, is it?"

Ryan glanced across at J.B. "You're the Armorer. You tell him all 'bout it."

In a flat, passionless voice, J.B. rattled off all the relevant details of the handgun.

"Model P-226. Nine mil. Fifteen rounds, push-button mag release. Barrel length

4.41 inches. Overall length 7.72 inches."

"Weight?" Jak asked.

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"I'm coming to that, son. Keep your carriage behind the horse."

"Sorry."

"Weighs in at precisely 25.52 ounces. SIG-Sauer, like you said. Second half of the

name's for J. P. Sauer and Son of Eckernforde. SIG is for Schweizerische

Industrie-Gesellschaft. Anything else you want to know 'bout the blaster?"

Finnegan gave a great bellowing laugh. "You mean there's fucking more?"

Jak joined in the general laughter, feeling his strength flowing back now that he

was standing up and his brains were settling back into his skull.

"How come it's so cold?" he asked, shivering in his tattered canvas-and-leather

coat and breeches, dyed brown, gray and green for camouflage. He felt the weight

of his trusty .357 Magnum, satin finish with the six-inch barrel, strapped to his

thigh in its holster.

"Yeah, it is kind of cold," Ryan agreed, standing up with the easy grace of a large

cat.

"Mebbe find some warm clothes in the redoubt," Krysty suggested, uncoiling at

his side and rubbing her hands together.

"Bracing is the word I would use. So much more healthy than the awful humidity

of the swamps, whatever they were called."

"Atchafalaya," J.B. said, reminding Doc Tanner where they'd been.

"God bless you," the old man replied. "Gesundheit is what we used to say."

The Armorer stared at him, blank-faced.

"Where are we now?" the boy asked, stretching himself and pushing his mane of

white hair away from his eyes.

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"We're here," Ryan Cawdor replied.

"We always here," Lori said, looking around at the others to make sure they

realized she was joking.

"Yeah," Finn grunted. "Guess she's 'bout fucking right. We're always here."

Most of the other gateways Ryan had passed through had been clean and orderly.

Once everyone was on their feet, blasters cocked and ready, he reached out and

opened the door.

For several seconds nobody moved or spoke. Then Ryan said, very quietly,

"Fireblast!"

It looked bad.

Chapter Two

THE ROOM BEYOND THE DOOR was around five paces in length by three

paces wide. The walls were painted a muted cream, faded with age. Virtually all

the other gateways Ryan and his companions had been through had been

thoroughly cleaned by the Americans nearly a hundred years ago. Kept

immaculate and sealed, they had been so well hidden that nearly all trace of their

presence had been long forgotten, all records lost.

But this one looked as if it had been vacated only thirty seconds ago. That was the

first reaction from Ryan and the others.

Ryan's finger tightened instinctively on the trigger of the G-12, ready to spray the

room with a veil of instant death. He could feel the tension all around him as

everyone waited. He sniffed at the air.

"Doesn't smell right. Krysty?"

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d11Itwasunlikeanyplacetheyhadeverknown.Krystylayonherback,staringaroundher,relaxingonasoftcouchofdeepgreenmoss."Whatyousaid,Doc,abouthowitusedtobe…wasitreallylikethis?""Oh,indeed.Iswearitwaslikethis.Ofcoursetherewerecities.Grea wensthatsouredthelandandskies,blightingtheenvironment.Buttherewerebil...

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James Axler - Deathlands 004 - Crater Lake

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