Dark Reckoning by James Axler

“Make good cover nightcreep blues,” Jak said. Then added, “If live get there.”

Breaking into a ragged cough, Dean brushed the ash from his hair and tried to wipe off his face with a sleeve, but that only seemed to make it smear. Even worse, his blaster had caught the brunt of the wind when the main door opened. He couldn’t risk firing the weapon until it had been thoroughly disassembled and cleaned. Tipping the blaster downward, powdery residue poured from the barrel. The situation was really bad. If anything attacked the group right now, they’d be dead meat, completely unable to defend themselves.

“Dark night, this sucks,” J.B. muttered, beating his hat clean on the end of a worktable. “We got company in the tunnel, a hellstorm outside and the mat-trans wasn’t working.”

“Looks like we’re here for a while,” Krysty agreed grimly.

Each of the companions was lost in thought for a moment as they watched the black ash swirling about to finally settle on the garage floor in a smooth ebony carpet.

“Enough,” Ryan stated, putting as much force into the word as the tired man could muster. “If we can’t leave, then I want a level-by-level search of the entire redoubt. There must be some food in here, tin cans, jars, MRE packs, self-heats. Bring what you find to the control room.”

“Not the kitchen?” Dean asked, puzzled.

“Eat as we work,” Ryan countered. “Silas was smart, but not a genius. If he turned off the mat-trans, then we can get it back on-line. Once we’ve had some food and a hot shower, then we can get busy.”

“Gonna leave?” Jak asked, frowning.

Ryan started to stride across the filthy garage, leaving a contrail of churned ash in his wake. “Hell, no. We’re going to finish the job of killing the blues,” he said matter-of-factly. “Every one of the bastards.”

Chapter Two

Thundering chaos ruled the land. Shriveled trees bowed under the violent maelstrom, and lakes of black mud sloshed onto caked shores. Whole bushes came out of the crunchy soil and flew away into the ash storm swirling around the Shiloh valley.

Shuffling through the hurricane, a slavering mutie flapped its loose lips over the long saber-toothed fangs that extended from its wide mouth. This was a good day, it thought. Food was near. A smell of blood hung in the air, which even the tempest couldn’t hide. Something had died violently, and the mutie simply wanted whatever was left after the slayer had eaten its fill of the prey. Fresh meat was the best, but old meat was more tender.

As the mutie neared the top of a barren hill, the wind was so strong it had to dig into the soil with its clawed feet to keep from becoming airborne. Step by slow step, it relentlessly followed the odor of blood. Black ash streamed past the creature in an endless supply, and lightning crashed in the hidden sky above, but to its catlike eyes, the world was perfectly clear in a dozen shades of black and white.

Eventually cresting a hill, the mutie looked down a wrong-stone thing and made happy noises. Food lived in such places, juicy food. Correct-stone things reached high into the sky and only four-legs lived there. It couldn’t catch those; too fast.

But wrong-stone things were flat and had many openings it could crawl through to find the food. Two-legs tasted good, and little two-legs couldn’t even fight or run away. They merely made loud noises. Especially when eaten. It liked the death music they made, but the little food always became quiet after only a few bites. Big food lasted much longer, sometimes making death music for a day. Much fun.

The mere thought of fresh blood flowing down its throat made the mutie shuffle faster through the roiling clouds. Descending the sloped hillside, its scaled legs sank into the softened soil, going to its knees, sometimes going all the way to its hips. At one point, the world disappeared as it sank below the churning material. But soon its claws found hard soil, and the creature dug back into the storm where it was warm and safe.