James Axler – Demons of Eden

At the acid reminder of his own unreliable and occasionally severely fogged thought processes, Doc lapsed into an abashed silence.

“I’ll leave this decision to a vote,” Ryan announced, “since nobody but me was anxious to leave this place. On the one hand, we can turn Joe down and stay, mebbe help Amicus rebuild. On the other hand, we can accept Joe’s offer, have a destination in mind and, at least, be on our way to somewhere again.”

Krysty tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “This really all boils down to whether we trust Joe.”

“Only one way find out,” Jak said.

No one could argue, or even cared to, with the statement. After an hour of discussion, it was agreed to accompany Joe and at least find out if he was telling the truth.

Chapter Twelve

Around midmorning Ryan sought out Joe and told him they would accept his offer. Joe said they would embark at dawn the next day, and he offered to buy the mounts and pack animals. He added that the march to the valley would take three to four days. It was agreed they would meet at the hostel at sunrise.

Taking a tour of Amicus with his friends, Ryan regretted ever raising the possibility of staying to help the citizens rebuild.

The population had been reduced by one-third, and the elderly and children had been pressed into service as medical aides and undertakers. The tavern served as a hospital, and the boneyard contained the unburied dead. The Amican defenders were covered with blankets and hides; the corpses of the Red Cadre had been stripped and dumped unceremoniously on the heap of animal bones and left to rot. The few able-bodied people in the ville were working at clearing the pass sufficiently so it could be used again as an egress.

As they passed them by, the Amicans eyed the companions distrustfully, even angrily. Ryan wasn’t pleased that his assessment of their prevailing attitude had been so accurate.

Rebuilding the open ville of Amicus seemed like far more effort than it was worth.

They returned to their quarters in the afternoon to rest. Ryan and Krysty lay together in the narrow bunk, but she was unresponsive to his caresses; she was troubled, haunted by what had happened the day before.

She was also exhausted, as all of them were, since they had gone for nearly forty tension-drenched hours without sleep. Their rest the night following the battle had been fitful.

As aching and as tired as he was, Ryan found he was a little afraid of falling asleep. He tried to repress the memories of the ghostly, inhuman voices echoing through his dream, but he still felt uneasy.

He had experienced nightmares before, many of the most vivid and terrifying after a long mat-trans jump. He couldn’t understand why he was so disturbed by his dreams of the wolf and the voice except he harbored a flicker of suspicion that they hadn’t been dreams at all.

But exhaustion drove him into a deep slumber, and it was dreamless.

He awakened at close to sunset and he found he was alone, not only in the room, but the entire hostel. After getting dressed and splashing water on his face, he went out onto the twilight streets of Amicus. He walked toward the big corral to find out how Joe’s preparations for the journey were coming along.

He didn’t trust the Lakota any more than any other stranger he had met in his many years of trekking across Deathlands.

He drew in a deep breath. The air was still musky with the odor of violence and death. Usually after a victory the air smelled new, sweet and sharp. It was becoming apparent that he had seen too much death in his years, played too much a part in adding to the world’s store of it. To cheat death, he had to deal death. He wondered what would happen when his killer’s reflexes no longer obeyed his killer’s instincts.

Ryan skidded to a sudden stop on the uneven ground. Tawny, greenish gold eyes blazed at him from directly ahead in the gloom.

A dark, shaggy, silver-shot shape crouched in the shadows, staring at him. For an instant Ryan thought it was a dog, then his hand went to the SIG-Sauer at his hip.