James Axler – Gemini Rising

Roused from his nap, Stephen burst into laughter. “A predark med bag? A man could buy a whole ville with one of those! And you would use it on a half-crazed cripple?”

“Why, hell,” Mildred said in an even tone, “I’d even use it on you.”

The laughter stopped hard, and the man glanced at her then at Clem on his other side for several minutes before finally accepting the rebuff. “Healers,” Stephen muttered softly under his breath. “Crazy as a shithouse rat.”

“Hunters, too.” Clem grinned, working the stiff bolt on his new longblaster and adding a few drops of oil. The Enfield .30-06 was just a marvel to the man. It was much shorter than his old smooth-bore musket, hardly over three and a half feet in length, and it weighed only about ten pounds. Oddly, the ammo clip didn’t come off, but instead he was supposed to load in six rounds from the top through the firing chamber by pulling back the bolt. Six shots! Think of the time that would save in a fight And he could shove in single rounds if necessary instead of taking the time to reload a full clip into the magazine.

Clem patted his new ammo pouch, packed with over fifty cartridges. Lovely little thing, too. There was a wide red stripe around the wooden stock, and a small crown etched into the blue barrel. The sights were a bit of a bitch to adjust for windage, but this was surely the best blaster he had ever owned. Hell, there was even a knife you could attach to the end of the barrel to gut folks. J.B. had called it a bayonet.

“Must you constantly do that?” Stephen complained as the man worked the bolt action again and again.

Clem smiled as he finally realized that the bolt wasn’t sticking. It just required some muscle to operate. “Man who don’t know his weps,” the hunter said, “is just a walking corpse looking for a place to lay down.”

“Amen, brother.” Mildred chuckled.

THE BURNISHED COPPER SUN was high in the purple sky when the convoy rolled across a trestle over a raging river, the spray forming rainbows in the air above the turbulent water.

“Is this the Sorrow?” Mildred asked, glancing below. The water was wild, a raging torrent of white foam that crashed over the exposed boulders with unbridled fury.

“Worst water in the Shens,” Stephen replied. “That river kills more often than a baron. Didn’t get that name for nothing.”

“Seen worse in Kentuck,” Clem drawled, taking a plug of some dark fibrous material from his pocket and biting off a piece. He chewed contentedly for a few minutes.

“Is that tobacco?” Mildred asked, interested.

He swallowed. “Sure. Want a chaw?”

“Good Lord, no! I mean, no thank you,” she hastily amended. “But, ah, any chance there are cigars available?”

“This is tobacco country,” Stephen noted with a tone of pride. “Bet your ass they got cigars. I hear they’re rolled on the thighs of virgin girls during the full moon.”

“Always thought seasoning was mighty important myself,” Clem snorted, taking a fresh bite of the plug.

The joke was crude, but Mildred was forced to smile in spite of herself while downshifting gears again. Damnation, if the road was in any worse condition they’d never be able to reach Front Royal without resorting to walking.

“Cigars a gift for your man?” Clem asked, stroking his blaster and watching the countryside pass by outside.

“His only bad habit,” the physician answered wryly. “But he does loves them so, and we haven’t found an intact cigar since” Mildred bit a lip, stopping herself. “Since the Deathlands,” she finished coolly.

The redoubts the companions used to travel across the continent were the biggest secret of the predark world, and even more so now. The very existence of the subterranean forts wasn’t to be mentioned in front of strangers under any circumstance.

Eventually, the road climbed higher and the truck rolled onto a barren field. Gutted tracks marked the soft soil, showing where numerous horses and wags had plodded along the identical path.

“We must be close,” she said, using a free moment to check the shotgun. The blaster was within reach and fully loaded.