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there is only one thing awaiting them the ritual."
Ryan and Jak exchanged glances. The mention of a ritual meant only one thing
to them a slow and painful chilling.
Mildred dropped her end of the bundle of rags. The woman hit the ground with a
hissed, squeaking sound that was part shock and part outrage.
J.B. let go of his end of the woman and looked at Mildred over the top of his
glasses, scratching his head and pushing back his fedora.
"Hell, John, if they're going to chill us anyway, why should we give a shit?"
There was a momentary stunned silence, then roars of laughter from their other
captors while the female rag bundle fumed in silence.
It could be the one chance they needed. Jak spun on his heel, ducked
underneath the barrel of Mac's blaster and aimed a straight-edged blow at the
man's gut. He felt his hand sink into the soft, fatty flesh before striking a
wall of solid muscle.
Mac wasn't as slow as his bulk would have them believe. Even as Jak ducked
underneath him, he raised the blaster just enough to let Jak come underneath,
confident that he had enough muscle strength to withstand the blow, and then
brought the barrel down sharply at the base of Jak's skull.
Jak's white, flowing hair was stained red as the sharp metal edges of the
badly filed barrel tore the skin at his nape. The blow wasn't hard enough to
render him unconscious, but it was enough to stun him and send him momentarily
to his knees.
Before he had a chance to recover, Mac followed up with his fist, grabbing
Jak's hair and bunching it, using it as a rope with which to pull the albino
up level with his face. Then he thrust Jak away from him, and the small albino
looked even
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dust, clinging onto his senses.
"Don't fuck with us," Mac growled, his previously lazy demeanor now lost. "We
don't have much, but what we do have we hold to."
"Okay, okay. Joke's over. We'll go with you and no trouble, all right?"
Mildred said hurriedly as she went over to examine Jak.
"Too slow." Jak grinned ruefully as he picked himself up.
He glared at Mac. "Thought just fat. Won't make mistake again."
Mac returned the glare with a grudging respect. "You're fast. I'll make damn
sure you don't get the chance."
Jak, Mildred and J.B. were now grouped together under Mac's watchful eye. The
ragged bundle that was called Tilly now stood at the back of the group,
keeping a watchful eye on their rear. Krysty and Dean were covered by the
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giant, while
Ryan had the dubious pleasure of having two of their captors covering him,
although, in truth, neither seemed to be taking too much care about how he was
covered.
They followed a two-lane blacktop across the valley, the tarmac distorted and
warped by the shift of the earth underneath, so that whorls and dips caused
them to stumble. Their captors, however, seemed to know every little dip.
Which was why they thought they could be slack with their prisoners, Ryan
thought. But it didn't explain why they weren't bothered about attackers.
"Mind if I ask a question?" he said laconically over his shoulder.
"You can ask, One-eye. Doesn't mean you'll get an answer, mind."
"Seems fair. I was just wondering why you're not keeping watch for an ambush."
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The question was met with a degree of laughter that Ryan hadn't met anywhere
else in the Deathlands.
"Excuse me my impoliteness," Mac, who seemed to vie with Tilly as unofficial
leader of the group, said through the tears of humor that rolled down his
cheek.
"Seems to me that you don't know this place at all. Mebbe we were wrong about
you."
"Mebbe you were," Ryan replied. "Still haven't answered my question, though."
"True, true. See, this place is a pesthole. No one much comes here. No one
would want to. Mebbe we get some traders once in a purple moon, but mostly
that's by mistake. There's only us and the insiders live here. No one else
wants to settle here."
"Then why are you still here?" Dean asked, the first time he'd been moved to
speak.
Mac shrugged. "Born here. Live here. Die here. That's the way of things."
"We get by," Tilly said. "We'd get by a whole lot better if the mother
insiders would leave us alone."
"Why don't they leave you alone?" Krysty asked.
"You tell me, you're one of them," Tilly spit.
Krysty sighed. "If we were one of them, then why were they shooting at us? Why
did they want us dead?"
Tilly moved in what might have been a shrug. "Everyone falls out with everyone
else. People fight."
"For no reason?"
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"There are 'no reasons,' " Mac snapped. "Now cut out the talking and let's
move it." He scanned the skies. "I think we're in for another bad one, and I
want to get back before it starts."
TRULY, DOC BELIEVED that reason had deserted him this time, perhaps for good.
"You realize that you are in that state that most people ascribe to me? The
state of insanity, I mean?" he asked Wallace in a soft, almost disbelieving
tone.
Wallace looked genuinely puzzled. "But, Doctor, even with your record of
awkwardness and dissent, I would have believed that you would be astounded in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]