James Axler – Circle Thrice

Jak hadn’t bothered to keep it, chucking away the cunning construction of knotted cords shortly after his spectacular success with the rabbit.

“Bored.” He leaned back, shirt pulled up over his flat, muscular stomach, studying the shrinking yellow-purple bruise, touching it gently with his long pale fingertips. “Anyway, easy make another if want to.”

“Bruise better?” Mildred asked.

“Sure. Still slows me some around edges.”

“I reckon you might have broken a rib,” she said. “Not that there’s much we can do if you have.”

“Not much use for all your medical skills out in the untamed wilderness of Deathlands, is there, Dr. Wyeth?” Doc teased, belching his pleasure at the meal. “By the Three Kennedys, but that coney was damnably as good at the second tasting.”

Mildred was lying on her back, her head in J.B.’s lap, while his nimble hands worked at some of the beads that had come loose from her braids. “One day, Doc, you old goat, you’ll have something bad wrong with you and you’ll come yelping for a doctor. And I’ll be the only one for ten thousand miles and a hundred long years. And don’t you forget it.”

AFTER THE MEAL Ryan stood and stretched. “Think I’ll go check out the neighborhood.”

“If you meet any nice couples, then invite them back for cocktails and a late-night coffee,” Krysty said, smiling up at him. Her brilliantly red hair reflected the golden highlights of the flames, spread out on either side of her narrow face like a bridal veil of living fire. Its relaxed condition was a true indicator that she didn’t sense any immediate danger close to them. Her eyes glittered at Ryan like burning emeralds.

“I’ll do that.” He paused, trying to remember details from some of the old mags, vids and books of what else neighbors used to do before the missiles rained down. “They can watch our vacation movies.”

Mildred laughed delightedly, clapping her hands. “Brilliant, Ryan. If all else fails, ask them if you can borrow a cup of sugar.”

“I’ll take a couple of canteens and see if I can come across some good water. Last lot’s already turning brackish in this heat.”

He patted the butt of the SIG-Sauer in an automatic reflex before stepping off into the darkness, choosing to move north through the dry land, moonlight throwing weak shadows across a narrow, winding game trail.

THE MOON HAD SNEAKED from behind a bank of low cloud that rested on higher ground to the far north, and the land darkened for a few minutes.

Ryan kept going, his excellent night vision, even with only one good eye, carrying him safely and silently along. He paused in midstride, hearing what might have been the echoing cry of a coyote.

Might have been.

“Wolf?” he whispered to himself, the blaster suddenly cocked and ready in his fingers.

Another animal answered the first one as the moon broke through again. They were close together and not all that far ahead of him. Ryan spotted the glint of water just to his right, where there was a clearing in the brush.

He moved with extra care, sensing a change in the night. There was a new stillness, and even the light southerly breeze seemed to have dropped away. Not a leaf was moving on any of the bushes around him.

The double howl and response was repeated once, and then there was a deep, brooding silence. The cicadas had stopped their ceaseless cheeping, and it felt to Ryan as if the world around him were holding its breath.

He stooped by the edge of the water, cupping his left hand and dipping into the cool fringe of the small pond. He brought it to his lips, his head turning constantly, sniffing at the air like one of the feral creatures of the night. The water was cold and fresh. It lay in a shallow saucer of cropped grass and was obviously a drinking hole for deer and all kinds of small predators. Ryan checked carefully up and down the rutted strip of dried mud and found no human tracks nor the spoor of any larger beasts.

The moon had brought back the noises, and the insects began to buzz again. Ryan slowly filled the two canteens, hearing the water gurgle into them, swishing it around and rinsing it out before repeating the process and capping them off. He hung them on his shoulder. He’d left the Steyr back at the camp. The hunting rifle carried a Starlight nightscope, but it wasn’t the kind of weapon for a casual evening recce. The SIG-Sauer was snug in its holster.