She managed another few steps before her legs gave out. On her knees in the mud, with tears of rage running down her cheeks, her last thought before she inhaled was Oh, fuck!
Then she sucked down air.
And her brain melted.
AS RYAN CHARGED DOWN from the top of the road, he took in the desolation surrounding the tiny lake. He also saw the companions standing there on the bank. Doing the opposite of what they were supposed to be doing, which was running for hard cover. Instead, they were gawking.
Under the strange clouds forming over the small body of water, something twinkled, then flashes of green reflected in the lake’s mirror surface. Over the thuds of his footfalls, he heard the snap and crackle of lightning. A fraction of a second later, there was thunder.
Big time thunder.
The unnatural was natural in Deathlands. The unexpected was to be expected. But this storm brewing in miniature caught Ryan completely off guard. The lightning was green and blindingly bright. It didn’t spear down from the clouds to the lake; it traveled upward, from the water to the billowing mist. The savage intensity of the electrical discharge filled him with dread. It appeared that he had done the last thing he had wanted to do: he had led his friends into something far worse than a box canyon.
“Nukin’ hell!” he swore, running faster.
As fast as he ran, he couldn’t beat the clouds. Blown by a jet wind from hell, they rushed from the lake to the land. Waves of pale yellow snow sheeted over the companions, who, except for Mildred, still didn’t move. The stocky black woman was trying to drag Dean and the little girl away from the shoreline. After a moment, she gave it up, and before Ryan could reach her, turned to run for the edge of the lower slope. The snowstorm engulfed her. For an instant, she disappeared behind a pale curtain. When the curtain shifted, she reappeared. Ryan saw her stagger and fall. She didn’t get up.
By the time Ryan got to the bank, the snowfall had already stopped. The earth around the waterline was heaped with foot-high yellow drifts, which seemed to shrink even as he walked through them. The tiny particles crunched like rice underfoot. They were rapidly dissolving into nothing. Over his head, the clouds dissipated into fine cottony wisps. Along the bank, the smell was of a slaughterhouse, of ancient, multitudinous butcheries.
The storm had been short lived but devastating. All of the companions had been struck to stone, either left standing, riveted to the boggy ground, or facedown in the muck, like Mildred.
His own heart trip-hammering, Ryan checked Dean’s throat for a pulse. As he felt the steady beat under his fingertips, a gunshot cracked from high above. A slug slapped the soggy ground two feet away.
When he looked up, he saw a half-dozen chillers spilling over lip of the summit, charging down the road toward him.
More gunshots rang out from the rim. For the chillers’ short-barreled blasters, the range was extreme. They couldn’t hit the side of a barn. Bullets smacked into the mud, plunking into the water. Ryan glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone had been wounded. It was hard to tell. One thing was certain, though. If the companions were still alive, they weren’t going to be for long. The rousties were rapidly closing the distance.
Ignoring the hot lead screaming by him, Ryan slogged over to the nearest dead tree. He flipped up the lens caps on his scope and used a forked limb as a shooting rest.
Aiming the Steyr uphill, Ryan took a stationary lead on the man running in the middle, holding the sight post way low to compensate for the shooting angle. He tightened down on the trigger, and the longblaster bucked and barked. He rode the rifle’s recoil wave, cycling the bolt action to put another live round under the hammer, recovering his target as it ran headlong into the heavy caliber bullet. The chiller’s arms flung wide and loose. His handblaster went flying as he was hurled backward and down. Ryan glimpsed the soles of his boots as his legs bounced limply in the dirt.