Deep Trek

But he still wouldn’t open his eyes. That would be bad news, bringing the pain flooding in like searchlights.

Jeff Thomas didn’t want that, so he snuggled down again into the darkness like a child seeking a few more moments before getting up to trudge to a hated school.

Another jab of discomfort, this time on his shoulder. “Come on, Jeff. Snap on out of it, will you? Please, Jefferson.”

The voice was familiar, though it somehow didn’t seem to sound quite right.

The incense was stronger, streaming from the open doors of the ruined churches like thick smoke. It was blinding him and circling around him as though he were at the heart of a Kansas whirlwind. There was a small dog at his feet, cowering, and a crazed, cackling old woman, pedaling an antique bicycle through the stormy sky.

“Dorothy?” Why should Dorothy be throwing stones at him?

Finally, very slowly Jeff Thomas opened his eyes. Nothing was in focus, and his whole head and body rocked with spasms of agony. He’d known it was going to be a mistake, so he closed his eyes again. But the pain didn’t go away.

“Hell… oh, goddamn hell.”

The other voice was drifting toward him from the semidarkness. “That’s better, Jeff. More like what I want to hear. Stick with that. Screw your courage to the sticking place, Jefferson.”

“Screw your courage, Nanci!” That was who it was. Nanci Simms. The Mercedes. Calico ghost town. Earthblood.

Now the memory was inching back reluctantly.

There was a vague impression of being torn from sleep by something heavy crashing into the side of his head. He’d tried to shout, but his mouth had filled with the iron taste of his own blood, and another savage blow knocked him back into swirling blackness.

He’d heard the sound of gunfire, as if from a great distance, but it merged with the noises inside his own skull, to be swallowed by nothingness.

“You all right, Nanci? What the hell happened? Feel dead.”

“I’ll take those in reverse order. You aren’t dead, though I imagine your head must feel as if it was under a buffalo stampede. What happened was that four of the country’s great unwashed and thoroughly unlovable came up on us in the dark and did us some grievous harm. And am I all right? I fear the answer is that I’m not particularly all right.”

But Jeff wasn’t really paying much attention. “What happened to the four men? I thought I heard shooting as I got to be unconscious.”

“They got to be dead.”

“Terrific! Serve the bastards right! Great, Nanci!”

“Jeff, can you come over here?”

Now he knew what it was about her voice that seemed odd and unfamiliar.

Nanci Simms sounded weak and feeble.

“You hurt?”

“Some.”

“Bad?”

“Just come over here, will you?” This time there was in her voice a touch of the old arrogance and power that frightened Jeff so much.

“Sure. Jesus, my head!” Cautiously he reached to touch the throbbing center of the pain. “There’s blood all over my hair, my neck. Some of it’s dried, Nanci. How long since—”

“About an hour. Been trying to wake you. I could hear your breathing, rattling away there like a rutting moose, so I knew you must still be in the land of the living.”

“Dead?”

“All four.”

“I heard the shooting.”

“So you said. Can you try and come over to me, Jeff? I need some help.”

“You shot them all?”

“Managed to reach the Port Royale and stitched them up like pretty maids all in a row. But…” There was a gasp of pain. “Yes, I was just a little slow on the extermination front. Getting careless in my old age.”

“They shoot you?”

“No.”

“Then…”

“Oh, Joshua, Judges, Ruth! Will you get over here right now.”

He stood, swaying unsteadily. Suddenly he propped to hands and knees and threw up. Throat straining, mouth filled with the bitterness of bile. He coughed and spluttered, feeling as though he was likely to choke on his own vomit.

“Don’t play the rock star with me,” said Nanci in an odd singsong voice.

“What?”

“Filling your air passages with puke, like some of the old-time rock and rollers did. Buying your one-way ticket to oblivion and a sort of lousy second-rate immortality.”

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