James Axler – Deathlands 35 – Skydark

Jak decided he was as close to the rear of the park- and freedom-as he was going to get He had to act now or never.

“Stickies!” he cried, pointing at the shadows beside the building.

“Where?” one of the sec men yelped.

“What?” shouted another as he brought up his blaster.

The white-haired teen snapped a spin kick into the closest sec man’s face and felt the satisfying crunch of a nose breaking under his heel. A hand grabbed his neck from behind, fingers sinking into his flesh. He twisted away, slamming his doubled fists into the man’s side. As he started to run, he saw the path he’d chosen was blocked by a huge guard with arms outstretched.

“Get the little shit!”

“Don’t let him get away!”

The sec men dropped their torches and closed in on him.

“Hey, snow-hair,” one of them said, “where do you think you’re going?”

Jak didn’t answer. He feinted right, then spun left, shooting a snap kick hard into the center of the speaker’s throat. The sec man dropped to his knees, clawing at his neck and gasping for air. Before Jak could make his dash, the other sec men jumped him, and by the sheer weight of their bodies, drove him to his back on the ground.

“We’ll fix you, you bastard runt!” the sec man on his chest said as he cocked back a fist. He laughed and smashed the youth full in the face.

Jak saw stars as he was hit repeatedly, then kicked and stomped up and down the length of his torso. And

when the first sec man got tired of the game, the others spelled him. As consciousness began to slip away, Jak prayed the bastards would lose control and beat him to death.

But they were pros; they knew just when to stop.

Grabbing him by the armpits, they hauled his battered and bloody body to the gates of the mutie zoo. Jak was dimly aware of their being met at the door by a stout man with greasy, gray hair and knee-high rubber boots-the baron’s zoomaster.

“Got a fresh one for you, Knackerman,” a sec man said.

The zoo master leaned down and lifted Jak’s head by the hair. “Pure albino variant, mebbe,” he said, squinting at the boy’s pale, scarred features. “Kind of hard to tell the way you messed him up.”

“Tried to get away,” a sec man said.

“He’ll live, don’t worry,” another added. “He’s a tough little bugger. Where do you want him?”

“I don’t want him,” Knackerman said. “Baron’s got too damn many packed in here as it is. Pretty soon they’re going to start dying from the scour sickness. They’re already killing each other every chance they get I keep telling him it’s a mistake to overcrowd his zoo. Baron doesn’t care. He likes variety. Always more muties, he says. This way.”

Jak started to come around as he was dragged into the building. The concrete corridor was dark and dank, and it reeked of the unwashed creatures imprisoned behind its floor-to-ceiling cages. The hallway rang with

their earsplitting shrieks, tortured sobs and inarticulate screams.

“They seem wilder than usual tonight,” one of the sec men shouted over the din.

“Mebbe they smell this one’s blood.”

“Something’s got into them, all right,” Knackerman agreed.

A cage door opened with a creak, and Jak was hurled inside. He landed facedown on the foul, matted straw. He didn’t move until the voices of the guards trailed off and the lights they carried disappeared. As he pushed himself up onto his elbows, he felt sharp pain as his facial wounds reopened. He tasted fresh blood inside his mouth. Rising to his knees, he scanned his surroundings. He couldn’t see much, even with his mutated eyes, but he could see enough to know he wasn’t alone in the cage.

At the back of the enclosure, where it was darker than dark, a huge pair of yellow cat eyes glittered at him.

WITH THE SOUNDS of the mutie zoo raging at their backs, Lester, Hylander and Gill lay belly down in a shallow pit they had scraped in the dirt.

“Listen to them rad-blasted buggers howl!” Gill said.