Hive Invasion (9 page)

Chapter Twelve

Latham didn’t talk much, which was fine by J.B. He did, however, have an extra pair of goggles, which J.B. accepted after stowing his precious spectacles in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He also tucked away his fedora, knowing there was no way it would stay on his head once they got moving.

As rides went, this one wasn’t too bad. It was nice and quiet, and what it lacked in amenities—his seat was unforgivingly hard, and pressed uncomfortably into the small of his back—it made up for in speed. The ground was flat and smooth, and the rubber tires absorbed most of the small bumps as they sailed across the flat landscape.

Then Tully and Jak spotted the antelopes, and things started going to hell.

There wasn’t any question about going after them. Food was food, and they had the means both to keep up with the stampeding animals and to bring them down. J.B. had attempted to tell Jak to conserve his ammo, and that the M-4000 shotgun was a much better choice for hunting, but the kid either hadn’t heard or ignored him.

“Damn! He’s going to waste bullets trying to take one of them down,” he muttered as they kept an eye on the lead windrider closing in on the galloping animals. A few seconds later, they heard a loud
boom,
even above the thunder of the herd, and passed the still-twitching body of an antelope as it skidded to stop in the dust.

Latham grunted. “Mebbe your boy’s a better shot than you thought.”

J.B. was man enough to admit when he was wrong. “Guess so. But why don’t we show them what we can do?”

“You got it.” Latham caught more wind in his sail, and soon the windrider was almost flying across the prairie as it passed the other one. It went so fast that the right wheel next to J.B. rose off the ground, so they were skimming along on two.

“What should I do?” he asked calmly, as unflappable as ever.

“Don’t panic, and lean toward the wheel!” Latham shouted as he leaned in that direction, as well. Gradually the errant wheel settled back down to the earth with a
thump
and they kept going.

“Get ready!” the pilot said as they drew closer to the lead antelope, a magnificent creature easily a full head higher than the rest, and with a set of horns twice as large as any of the other bucks.

Feed us for a couple days at least, J.B. thought as he aimed and fired. The cloud of double O buckshot smashed into the chests and legs of the two lead animals, sending them collapsing into the dirt in a tangle of hooves and horns. “Keep trailing them. We’ll come back for the meat!”

“Not too much longer. It won’t last long in this heat!” Latham called back.

“Right, just want to try to get one more— Whoa!” J.B. had also seen the herd suddenly change direction. The move caught Latham off guard, and by the time he readjusted his sail to pursue, Tully and Jak were cutting across to head into the dust cloud—right when the huge raptor flew by.

“Dark night!” J.B. said, turning to keep an eye on the gigantic bird of prey. “I’ve seen few birds that large before!”

“Damn! It’s going after Tully,” Latham said while hauling on the lines to turn his windrider around. “Best get after them, see if we can catch it from behind.”

Latham knew how to pilot his craft, but beating into the wind made for slow going. J.B. kept tracking the bird while the rangy scavvie kept his gaze on the far-off sailer. They were still at least five hundred yards away, however, when the bird folded its wings and plummeted toward the speeding vehicle. Glancing down, J.B. saw sunlight glint off the barrel of Jak’s blaster, and held his breath as he watched the giant bird scream toward its prey. “Not yet...not yet... Just one second more...”

Then the bird abruptly spread its wings and slowed. “What the hell—” J.B. began. At the same time, Jak threw his blaster arm over his face as the bird’s forward momentum carried it into the top of the sail. The impact was strong enough to tip the vehicle, spilling both occupants into the dirt.

“Get us over there!” J.B. said, settling the M-4000 against his shoulder. “I can take it out at a hundred yards!”

“I’m tryin’!” Latham struggled to get the sailer over there, but had to tack back and forth to do it. Meanwhile, the raptor circled again and came in for a landing, its huge talons thudding into the dry earth. Watching the two nearby humans with quick, jerky movements of its head, it began stalking them.

“Almost there!” Latham began. “Hang on—”

“Shut up!” J.B. hissed when he saw Jak throw out a warning hand to Tully, who was scooting back under the overturned sailer.

“What’re you doin’? It’s gonna kill them!” Latham said.

“No, it’s not,” J.B. told him. “Trust me. Jak knows what he’s doing.”

“That kid can’t take that thing on. It’ll tear him to ribbons!”

“Just get us closer, but stay quiet,” J.B. ordered, still sighting down the barrel of the automatic shotgun. He could have taken a shot at the bird’s head, but it would still be a long one at that range, and Jak was close enough to the animal that he didn’t want to risk hitting him with stray buckshot. Besides, if he knew Jak, that bird was as good as dead—it just didn’t know it yet.

Oddly, however, Jak wasn’t being his normal, aggressive self. While he was leading the predator away from the upended windrider, he was holding both arms out in front of him and stepping very cautiously. Did he get blinded by the dust? J.B. wondered.

The bird hopped forward and darted its head toward Jak, who skipped aside while lashing out with his right hand. The bird shrieked and recoiled while a small cluster of blue feathers drifted down to the dirt.

“Holy—” Latham began.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” J.B. said.

True to his word, the incensed bird lashed down with its head again, leading with its beak and intent on stabbing the large point into Jak’s head. This time, however, the skinny teen waited for the bird to come at him. When it looked as if he was about to be impaled, he sidestepped just enough so the beak smacked into the ground.

As the bird’s head went down, Jak leaped up, twisting in midair to land on the back of the bird’s neck. Squawking in alarm, the raptor tried taking off, but Jak was heavy enough to keep it grounded. It settled back down, taking a few ungainly steps to try to get enough velocity to launch, before it suddenly flopped on the ground with such force that Jak was pitched off. He kept rolling, moving out of reach of that large beak. The mutie bird flapped its wings once and snapped weakly at him, then settled back on the ground, its eyes glazing over.

By this time Latham’s sailer was close enough for J.B. to get out and run over. He made sure the bird was truly dead, then turned to Jak, who was covered in dust from head to foot. The albino sat up and shook his head, then blinked and tried to wipe the dust off his face and profusely watering eyes. In his right hand was a bloody throwing knife.

“Black dust, kid, took you long enough to chill that buzzard,” J.B. said with a smile.

Jak glared at him. “Didn’t see you helping.”

“Had him in my sights, but I figured you had it under control. Where’s your blaster?”

“Dropped when feathered fuck blinded me—”

“What? What do you mean ‘blinded you’?”

Jak pointed at the dead body. “Had reflective scales on chest. Thought was attackin’, then pulled up and got right in face with sunlight. Had fight blind.”

“Wait a minute—you took that thing on without being able to see?”

Jak shrugged. “Not that bad. Could see movement. Big splotch of blue. Heard him, too. Fucker wasn’t quiet.”

“Still, that’s pretty damn gutsy,” J.B. said as he slung his shotgun over a shoulder. “Nice job.”

“What expect?” Jak stared at the huge bird. “Fucker gonna tear heads off if I not chill.”

“Ace on the line with that,” J.B. said, holding out a hand to the youth. “Well, come on, we’ve got to get to those carcasses and bleed them before they spoil.”

Jak took the hand, and J.B. hauled him to his feet. “Damn right. Good to get a full belly after all fuckin’ around.”

“By the way,” J.B. said, patting the barrel of his shotgun. “Next time we go hunting, let the guy with the big blaster take the lead.”

Jak snorted. “Get out there first and I will. Took so long herd woulda been in Mex Gulf before you shot.”

Chapter Thirteen

The sun was setting when the group finally came within sight of the small ville where Tully and Latham’s people were holed up.

Prepping the animals for transport was much more time-consuming than they’d figured. Luckily, Tully’s windrider wasn’t damaged in the crash, so after they had gotten all of the antelope carcasses in one place, they had her go back and start ferrying the rest of the party from the school building to join them. Meanwhile, Latham and J.B. rigged a framework from which to hang the gutted antelope to drain them, while Jak kept an eye out for more birds or any other kind of trouble.

It was hot, sticky work, but by the time the party was reunited, the four antelope were ready for transport. The hindquarters of each animal were cut out and distributed equally among the group. The rest was tied to the front of the sailers, along with a trophy from the raptor for Jak. At last, the entire group, dusty and sticky with blood and sweat, set off to cover what Tully and Latham estimated was about five miles to town.

An exhausting two hours later, they trudged toward the end of what looked to have once been one of hundreds of thousands of small towns across America—back when there had still been an America. It was a classic Main Street setup, with two rows of buildings facing each other and a wide road running down the middle of it. Where the main drag might have once been chockablock with buildings, the wooden ones had surrendered to the harsh environment long ago, leaving empty gaps in the three-block-long skyline. Oddly, there were also some signs of recent construction, including hastily erected scaffolding on one building that looked as if it was being dismantled. Any signs or identifying features on the stone and brick buildings were long gone, along with their windows, leaving empty, gaping holes behind.

They stopped at the skeletal remains of what had been a gas station, its pumps and small building drained of fuel and supplies long ago. It was agreed that Tully would go ahead and let the rest of the folks know whom and what they had brought back with them, while Latham would stay with the group to show there was no ill will on either side. The silence while they waited was absolute, broken only by the lowing of a cow somewhere deeper in town.

When the slim young woman appeared at the far end of the street and gave the signal, Ryan and his group slowly walked in, with him, Krysty and Doc on the left flank of Latham’s windrider, and J.B., Mildred, Jak and Ricky on the right. As they came in, Ryan saw no sign of Tully’s vehicle, and assumed it was parked somewhere out of sight.

They faced a group of about forty people, ranging from kids as young as five years to weathered elders who could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy years old. A few obvious families stood together, but there was also a fair number of single people both young and old. Expressions were grim, with the stress of their situation weighing heavily on each face.

The men were all bearded, with many divided into two braids forking down over their chests. Hairstyles were oddly short for both women and men, with several shaved heads among both sexes. They all looked relatively healthy, all things considered—no obvious mutations or rad sores from contamination, just the majority of them aged beyond their physical years by enduring a hardscrabble life in the Deathlands.

Their clothes were all similar to Tully and Latham’s patchwork garments, although Ryan spotted the two recovered jumpsuits clutched in the hands of the women in two separate families who both looked as if they needed them. As he studied the people around him more closely, he saw light blue patches of cloth from what had to be other recovered jumpsuits mending other garments, and in several cases, forming sleeves and pants for several of the townspeople alongside tanned hides, leather and cloth of every type. Several of the men sported cloth bandages, and one had his arm bound in a sling. Also, and not surprisingly, given Tully’s description of their group, while Ryan saw several staves and canes used by the elderly, and many men wore knives on their leather belts, he didn’t spot a single firearm among the lot of them.

As Latham brought his heavily laden windrider to a stop, several teenagers silently came forward, untied the two antelope carcasses from its front and disappeared back into the crowd. Others took the hindquarters from each of the walkers, the ones hefting Krysty’s and Mildred’s loads obviously surprised by the weight each woman carried.

As usual, Jak’s appearance drew stares and mutters, mostly from the children, but no one stepped forward to accuse him of being a demon or an evil mutie. Of course, it was still early—anything could happen in the next few hours. One person whom Ryan noticed couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the albino was Tully. She tried to look as if she was observing the entire group, but her gaze always settled back on him. Ryan made a mental note to keep an eye on both teens—they hadn’t come this far just to be cast out, or even worse stoned to death, or watch Jak get a particular part of his anatomy cut off just because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

A suntanned man who looked to be in his fifties, but with a straight back and steady gaze, stepped forward, regarding the companions from under a faded, stained trucker’s cap with the words
Libertarian Party
barely readable on it.

“Greetings, travelers. I am Elder Mattias Bough, one of the leaders in council of this collective. Sister Tully has told us of Brother Latham’s and her good fortune in meeting you folks when they did, and of the assistance you twice bore them during the journey back here, including the bounty that you have seen fit to grace our table with this evening. Is this true?”

Ryan cleared his throat. “Yeah, thank you.” He took a moment to introduce himself and the rest of the group. “Regarding the hunt, that was more of a cooperative thing. We wouldn’t have been able to get close enough to the herd without their windriders. As for what happened in the school building, it just seemed like they were in a spot of trouble, and we thought we might lend a hand.”

“And they have apprised you of the trouble we are facing?” Elder Bough asked with the barest hint of hesitation in his voice.

“Yeah, and we thought we might be of some assistance with that, as well,” Ryan replied. “We’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.”

That caused a fresh round of muttering and whispers to break out among the assembly. Elder Bough raised his hands for silence. “Still your tongues for now, people. Perhaps our prayers have been answered, but now is not the time to speak of it.”

He turned back to the party. “We will discuss that at the council later this evening. For now, the collective of Silvertide bids you all welcome as our honored guests. What is ours is yours. You will dine with us tonight, and share in the goodness that you have blessed us with.”

“It would be our pleasure,” Ryan said.

Elder Bough turned to the group behind them and raised his hands. “Let us pray.”

Every eye around them closed, every head dropped. Many clasped their hands to their chests, or crossed them and covered their hearts. Ryan casually signaled his group to follow their lead. As long as they looked as if they were going through the motions, there shouldn’t be any trouble.

“O Lord, we thank you for the blessings that you have seen fit to bestow on us this day,” Elder Bough began. “First, with the joyous return of Sister Tully and Brother Latham from the treacherous plains, and for the removal of two of the devil’s own plague that seeks to undermine us and tear us apart. Thank you, O Lord, for the generous strangers whose paths you saw fit to cross with our children, and whom were saved by your everlasting mercy. We hope that they may hold our salvation from the vexing invasion we are afflicted with. And finally, thank you for the newcomers’ skill at the hunt, that they have so generously afforded us this bounty, of which we will make sure no part goes to waste. In Jaysoos’s name, amen.”

“In Jaysoos’s name, amen,” the rest of the congregation intoned.

“Come, you must be tired and hungry,” Elder Bough said. “I know this place doesn’t look like much, but you may be surprised what we’ve been able to do in the few days we’ve been here.”

“Your hospitality is much appreciated,” Krysty said.

“Elder Teale will take you to your quarters for the evening, and to the bathing area,” Elder Bough said. A middle-aged woman stepped forward with three daughters in tow, ranging in age from late teens to early twenties.

Mildred blinked. “I’m sorry. I must have too much dirt in my ears. Did you say ‘bathing area’?”

Elder Bough nodded. “Yes, it is one of our most treasured inventions. Elder Teale will explain it to you.”

The three girls hid smiles as their mother waved the group over. “This way. We also have clothes that you can borrow while we clean and repair yours.”

“That’s very kind, but there’s really—” Ryan was interrupted by a sharp elbow from Krysty.

“That would be heavenly,” she interrupted. While the collective women walked ahead, she whispered, “Mebbe you like smelling like you’ve slept on the ground for a month, but I don’t. I also don’t think it’s too much to ask for cleaning and repairs to our clothes and a good, hot meal.”

“Hear, hear,” Mildred chimed in.

“All right, all right, I’m sure they’ll find plenty to fix on my clothes, as well,” Ryan said. “Even so, no one surrenders their blasters.”

“Course not,” J.B. said, with nods and agreement all around. “I’m hoping we get a chance to see what Tully picked up from those guys—hopefully something we can reload our weapons with, if not use ourselves.”

They were escorted down a side street to a two-story, L-shaped building that might have actually been a motel long ago. Elder Teale and her daughters brought the group up to three rooms on the second floor and showed them inside.

“With the water machine, we’re able to have running water in these rooms, so you can wash up.” She indicated three doors next to each other. “These are the washing rooms.”

“You have no idea how wonderful that sounds,” Mildred said. “I think every square inch of me’s covered in dust and dirt.”

“What is the water machine?” Ricky asked.

“It’s a sun-powered condenser that produces—” one of the younger sisters began before receiving an elbow in the ribs from her older sibling that made her clap her hands over her mouth.

“You know we’re not supposed to talk about it to outsiders!” the older one hissed. Flustered, the girl stared at the floor.

Ricky smiled. “It’s okay, we’re not going to steal it or anything. I’m just always interested in new machines.” He looked around at everyone, all of them now looking at him. “Um...I think I’ll go to my room now,” he said with flaming-red cheeks before turning and heading down to the farthest door.

“Girls, stand to collect our guests’ clothes when they’re prepared.” Each daughter stationed herself at one of the three doorways. Elder Teale shook her head, her smile growing a bit strained. “Children—forever speaking before thinking.”

“Well, like Ricky said, we don’t mean any harm,” Ryan said. “I’d rather not see the girl punished for what she said.”

“Marijah’s always been headstrong. Since she broke one of the collective’s rules, I’m afraid that’s up to the elders—but I thank you for your words.” Her gaze flicked to the roof of the building. “Due to the limits of how much water we can produce, we only ask that you keep your washing as brief as possible.”

“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll be in and out faster than a jackrabbit on a blacktop highway in August,” Mildred said. Her comment also brought blank stares from the others. “Okay...guess it’s time to go change, too.”

The others filed into their rooms as well, with Ryan and Krysty taking one, J.B. and Mildred taking the next, and Doc, Jak and Ricky sharing the last one.

Inside was mostly empty. An oddly new-looking cardboard box by the door was the only obvious place to set their clothes. The window glass was long gone, and the empty frame was now covered by wooden boards.

Closing the door, Ryan put his ear against it to see if anyone was planning on listening to their conversation. Hearing nothing, he turned to Kristy, who had already shucked her boots and was peeling off her dusty, sweat-stained jumpsuit. “Gaia! It smells like a cross between a dirt-floor outhouse and low-end gaudy house,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Kicking off his own boots, Ryan stripped as he padded toward her. “Lucky for you I like my women to smell...earthy.”

“Women?
Women?
Best change that to the singular, unless there’s something you want to tell me.” Ryan’s grin was infectious, and Krysty stripped off her own T-shirt and threw it at his head. “You like how I smell so much, well, how about now?”

Ryan took a moment to breath in the mingled scents of sweat, musk and that indefinable aroma of the only woman for him. “Smells just as good to me as the day we met.”

It had been that way between them since they’d first seen each other. Ryan was with the Trader, who had come to the pest-hole ville of Mocsin, only to find himself in the middle of a power struggle between its baron, a sad sack of mutie shit named Jordan Teague, and his lieutenant and head of his sec force, a cold-eyed bastard named Cort Strasser. After saving Krysty from a mutie assault, they had grown close in the days after, and had soon become lovers. Now, he couldn’t even imagine a day without her by his side, and knew she felt the same.

“Flatterer.” Wearing only panties and a bra, Krysty shook her hand back and forth, narrowing her gaze at the small cloud of dust that drifted out of it. “Ugh! You want first wash?”

“Nope.” Ryan took her hand and led her toward the smaller secondary room. “Since we have to conserve water, I know the best way to do it.”

Krysty cocked her head as they walked into the smaller bathroom, her eyebrows raised in disbelief. “You aren’t serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? We haven’t had a moment to ourselves since the redoubt, and besides—” his strong fingers cupped her breast, while his other hand drifted lower, making her gasp with mingled surprise and pleasure “—you still owe me for cutting your hair back on the plains.”