“Then mebbe he never went up in the hotel,” J.B. said. “Mebbe he’s still alive.”
“Could be,” Ryan said as they continued on.
It was odd seeing Willie ville so devoid of life, so quiet. Except for the whistling of the wind and the crunch of their boots on the dirt, there was no sound. A half hour before, the place had been thriving, one of the few jewels of Deathlands* human civilization. Now it was just another stinking boneyard.
They came upon the trampled length of intestine as they walked up the path to the zoo entrance. The doors to the building were open, as were all the cells they could see from the doorway.
Open and empty. The place was as still as a tomb.
Ryan’s faint, desperate hope of finding and rescuing his red-haired lover began to evaporate.
They walked around the ravaged corpse of the zoo-keeper, then split up to quickly check both of the long corridors. On Ryan and Doc’s side of the zoo, all die cage doors were open and no one was home. J.B. and Mildred returned alone from the other side of the zoo.
‘They’re not here,” J.B. stated.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Over her shoulder, in the distance, Krysty could see the pall of black smoke rising from the top of the Freedom City Motor Hotel and Casino. Even though the wind was blowing the smoke at right angles to the highway, the nasty, charred plastic and overroasted-meat smell of it surrounded her. Ryan was still back there at the ville, along with Mildred, J.B., and Doc, probably dead, she thought dully. Their burned flesh was probably part of the stink she smelted. Krysty felt too numbed to grieve for them. So many had died. So quickly.
Soot particles and bits of ash peppered her face, arms and hair. She shifted the awkward load she carried to her opposite shoulder. The underside of the black plastic bag was sweaty where it had rubbed against her. The bulky pile of documents inside the sack banged against her lower back on every step.
Jak walked by her side. He, too, carried a plastic bag stuffed with papers and books. All the muties who accompanied Lord Kaa on his retreat from Willie ville, twenty in all, were loaded down with the liberated treasure of the Apocalypticon. Even the mutie mountain lion had a bulging bag tied across its back. They
slinked away from the burning ville, led by their piebald leader.
Though Lord Kaa had won the battle for Willie ville, that victory had cost him everything. Virtually his entire army had been caught in the top of the tower when the fires broke out Though he had fallen into an even more violent foaming, thrashing fit, there was nothing he could do with Ms third eye to save his troops from destruction.
Because they didn’t want to be saved.
The power blood and flame had over diem was greater than the power of his love, his vision, his integrity. He couldn’t convince his stickles to run. He couldn’t make them even descend one floor to escape their horrible fate. Their instinctive drives negated every mental image he sent them. The long view, the big picture he provided, no longer mattered when there was that much gore and smoke in the air.
Kaa had taken the loss hard; it had drained him both physically and mentally. Krysty could see it in the way he held his head, his shoulders, in his gait. He really cared for his troops. He felt he had let them down terribly, that he hadn’t done his job, hadn’t protected them from themselves. Seeing him like that, in such internal pain and torment, made her want to cry. But she couldn’t muster tears for him.
Whatever Kaa’s plans had been, whatever campaign he had in mind after the victory at Willie ville, they had gone up in flames along with the top of the hotel. He no longer had an army. He had a platoon made up
of former zoo inmates, most of whom were the products of the half-baked genetic experiments of Baron Willie Elijah. They were headed south down the highway, in the direction of the way stop and the redoubt. No one asked any questions of their leader. They just followed the piebald giant, a flock of sheep trailing behind a broken-hearted shepherd.