Authors: Craig Sargent
The Vile Village
TO THE
DEATH!
He was huge, a monster who had killed countless numbers of men usually with one blow. But Stone was fast—and he wasn’t about
to fight like the oversized killer. The Last Ranger had his own nasty style—one called survival. He danced around the gang
topman. Again and again his knife ripped into flesh and then pulled out… Vorstel staggered backward and slammed hard into
the wall, cracking the back of his head—though it hardly mattered anymore…
Then Stone heard a sudden sound and whipped around holding the knife at ready. But he was too late—Rudolph was there—right
in his face—the huge knife with its cracked bond handle coming in like an ICBM from hell. In a fraction of an instant, Stone
knew he was a dead man—that he couldn’t duck, move, parry or stab the bastard who was just a foot from his nose and coming
at him. His whole body tensed up as he prepared to die…
The Last Ranger
The Savage Stronghold
The Madman’s Mansion
The Rabid Brigadier
The War Weapons
The Warlord’s Revenge
Published by
POPULAR LIBRARY
POPULAR LIBRARY EDITION
Copyright © 1988 by Warner Books, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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First eBook Edition: September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56645-2
Contents
One
T
he first drop of burning rain hit a falcon flying about a hundred feet up. The bird of prey had been in storms before—many
times. Its feathers easily insulated it from any but the worst and most drenching of rains. Thus it stayed aloft, ignoring
the thick drops that fell that day. It had to eat, find food. For some reason hunting had been very hard the last few weeks.
The falcon didn’t know why. Such were not the thoughts of a hawk—to question time or cause and effect. But it did feel a gnawing
sensation in its guts that grew stronger with every hour. So it hunted, searching for the prey it lived on—rabbits, moles,
a lizard or two. It swung around in wide, lazy circles, more like a kite than a living bird, for it barely moved its wings
or expended any muscular energy, so precise was its ability to use the thermals and currents that filled the air everywhere
in complex waves invisible to all but itself.
A second drop, and a third one fell. Soon the air was filled with the water, huge drops the size of marbles, falling from
the dark clouds above. Then the falcon felt something else, stronger even than the hunger biting at its stomach: a burning
sensation along its wings and body. It tried to fly faster to get away from the pain. But that only seemed to increase the
electric sensation. It had felt pain before—had been stung by a wasp, had come in hard against its mountain nest and poked
a branch through its wing. But these had been brief, sharp pains, ones that vanished quickly and healed.
This was a new pain, a sensation unlike anything the falcon had ever experienced before. It was burning everywhere along its
body now—fibers of pure fire that sent shock waves through the falcon’s entire sensory apparatus. And suddenly the falcon
knew it was in trouble, big trouble. It started to head down to find cover but discovered that it could hardly use its wings.
They, too, felt like they were on fire. The bird of prey began jerking wildly, its wings vibrating on each side of it in muscle
spasms. Then the falcon’s whole body went haywire, twisting and flipping around in the air like some sort of rabid creature
having a fit.
It spun down from the sky without a bit of the breathtaking grace it had once possessed, and slammed into a field of small
boulders, smashing itself instantly to a bloody pulp on the granite surface. The mess that was left of it seemed to send up
a white smoke from every cell of its pulverized body. And as the rains continued to fall in a deluge, the steaming pile was
quickly washed down the side of the boulder. In seconds there was nothing left of the falcon, not a single clue that it had
ever lived.
Martin Stone looked up at the storm clouds gathering above him and shivered a little deeper in his soul. He knew they were
heading straight for him. Mountainous thunderheads filling the heavens like an ocean of writhing whales, twisting and grinding
around one another as they descended eagerly toward the dry earth below. Had it been normal rain, rain of the old days, Stone
would have enjoyed the drenching. There was nothing like riding along on a 1200-cc Harley Davidson through the pouring drops
that had, in the past, been more exhilarating.
But these clouds were different. Even though they were still relatively high, Stone could see the pulsing patterns of energy
in their cotes. The damn things were like furnaces. Black as soot around the edges, then gray toward the belly—but with streaks
of red and purple running through them everywhere like a system of veins. The clouds throbbed with luminescence, pulsing alternately
dark and then light every few seconds. Stone knew that the clouds were radioactive—and that they had come to claim a shitload
of living souls.
As if in telepathic agreement, a loud whine went up just behind him on the backseat of the Harley Electraglide he was driving
down a rutted backcountry road in southwestern Colorado. A furred shape put its front paws upon Stone’s shoulders and made
a quite ungodly noise into its master’s right ear, as if auditioning for lead singer in a punk-rock band.
“Jesus fucking Christ, dog, keep the decibel level down, okay? A deaf master is not a good provider.” Stone pulled his head
away sharply to the side without easing his hand from the handle of his Harley as he moved down the increasingly dark dirt
road. The pitbull suddenly lost its footing on his shoulder as Stone moved—and started falling forward fast, heading off the
bike and toward the ground. Only the fighting terrier’s super-fast reflexes enabled it to throw its front paw forward onto
the seat and twist its body back to the side, stopping itself at the last second. But its face slammed hard into Stone’s gun
butt, which protruded from his hip, and the canine let out a howl of displeasure. At last the animal got itself straightened
out and clamped both pairs of legs hard around the black leather seat. Its heart was beating like a jackhammer from the near
fall at thirty-plus miles per hour onto the rocky road.
Stone searched ahead for cover but didn’t see a hell of a lot that looked promising. He was in low foothills covered with
mostly scraggly-looking firs—not much protection. Stone knew that the clouds and the rains they would release were highly
poisoned with radioactivity. He had been fleeing the damn fallout for days now, staying just ahead of it. But it had caught
up as it swept south and west—the remnants of an atomic bomb that had been detonated just days before. It had been aimed at
him but had killed the man who had fired it, General Patton III, a madman who had been plotting to exterminate select groups
and races around America. Still, it all hardly mattered now. For the fallout, the high-rad clouds that had swept off around
the countryside all over Colorado and Utah, was not prejudiced in any way. It would kill anyone it could, regardless of race,
creed, color, religion, or species.
He came to an intersection of four roads and brought the bike to a complete stop, setting the Harley into neutral. Stone pulled
out a half-torn map and stared down at it through the darkening twilight. He couldn’t find the junction on it at all. But
then, these were backcountry dirt lanes and probably never had made it to official registries—when there had been such things.
His compass didn’t seem to be worth shit, Stone saw for the twentieth time that week. The rad clouds were affecting the magnetism
of the area as well, making the needle of his bike’s built-in compass spin around and around like a roulette wheel unable
to stop itself.
Stone got off the bike, the auto kickstand snapping down into place, took out a fourteen-inch hunting knife, and held it firmly
in his right hand.
“Okay, pal—you tell me,” Stone said, not sure if he was addressing the knife, or fate in general. He gripped the stag bone
handle and threw it up into the air. The custom bowie spun around about eight times and then came down—the point aiming at
the road on the right. Stone picked the knife up, dusted it off against his camouflage pants, and re-mounted the Harley, disgusted
to see the pitbull absolutely immobile on the back. Sometimes the dog seemed about the laziest creature on the face of the
earth. It was tough—that was for damn sure—but it had definite slothlike tendencies in its character as well.
He threw the 1200-cc into gear, and the bike jumped for-ward, the bullterrier having to grip extra hard for a second as the
gravity started sucking it backward. Stone wheeled the big bike over onto the road on the right, the narrowest of the four,
and shot quickly up to at forty miles per hour. He kept glancing nervously over his shoulder, but the damn clouds seemed to
be hanging right over his head like immense black vultures, just biding their time until they could swoop down and peck out
his eyes, eat his heart with cloudy beaks. He could smell the storm clouds in the air now. What they contained had a definite
stench that was foul and dank, like the innards of some long dead corpse, something rotting and unfathomably diseased. Even
Excaliber, behind him on the seat, lei out a loud half snort/half sneeze as he seemed to try to clear his black nostrils of
the or. But there was no getting rid of it; the perfume of infinite rot was blanketing them as the clouds dropped ever lower,
as if trying to touch the hair on their heads.
The sky seemed to grow first greenish, like the cheeks of a cadaver—and then dark, very dark. It took hardly more than thirty
seconds for it to go from a dim but seeable twilight to a hurricane black, as if the vanishing sun had been ripped from the
sky and swallowed whole by the advancing army of clouds. Stone switched on the headlight of the Harley, and it cut a band
of yellowish-white illumination through the black-and-gray mists of the road ahead, the air itself so thick with moisture
that it was as if he were looking through a diffracting prism as the water molecules in the air bent the images around him,
making everything shimmer and waver like a mirage in the desert. Stone had to keep blinking his eyes, squinting hard to make
sure he could even see where the hell he was going. It was like driving into a dream—or a nightmare.
Before he even had a chance to pull off the road and get under one of the junkie-thin trees that lined it, the black thunderheads,
less than a thousand yards above him, let out a massive, thunderous explosion so that the whole sky filled with crackling
lightning bolts that spiderwebbed off in every direction, streaks of fire slamming into the earth all around him. Then the
great mountain of moisture opened up as if a dam had burst, and instantaneously Stone couldn’t see an inch ahead of him as
sheets of water completely covered his face and eyes.
He heard squeals of pain from behind him, and before he could tell the damn dog to shut up, Stone knew why. The rain burned!
Burned like a motherfucker! Already, on his face and hands, and he could feel it as it soaked through his leather jacket and
the thick camouflage fatigues on his legs. At first it stung almost like a wasp or a bee sting. But within seconds, as it
penetrated his epidermis and made contact with nerve cells, Stone let out a yowl of pain of his own. The stuff felt like fire,
like what he had imagined napalm would feel Like—he had seen pictures of people running with the stuff burning all over them.
Water was supposed to be wet. But this fucking stuff burned up and down his exposed flesh like waves of flame—of the real
stuff.
Suddenly Stone couldn’t see at all, and his eyes seemed to explode in agony, as if razor blades were being dragged across
them. He tried to stop, but he was steering blind. There was a loud crunching sound as the Harley slammed into a tree, and
then he and the dog were flying through the rain-soaked air. They both carne down hard on the road about thirty feet ahead,
a few yards apart. The pitbull howled from the sharp pain of the burning drops permeating its hide—already little pits of
burned hair were appearing here and there, the pelt all red and raised. Stone found himself facedown in the stinking mud and
tried to rise. But he couldn’t. Everything burned horribly. And before he knew it, as his mind reeled from the burning flood,
he was joining the pitbull in its animal screams of fear.