James Axler – Rat King

blackness and welcoming respite of unconsciousness overwhelmed him.

Chapter Twelve

The two-lane blacktop came to a sudden end where the tarmac rose into the sky

for a height of twenty feet at an angle that suggested a sudden eruption from

the earth had pushed it upward. The ground on either side was divided by a chasm

that yawned to a width of twelve feet or so at its widest, narrowing to three or

four feet in places.

“End of the line?” Ryan asked as they came to a shambling halt.

“Hell, no,” Mac said, gesturing across the divide with his blaster. “We just

jump it.”

Jak gave him a questioning look, particularly at his drooping stomach.

Mac laughed without humor. “Mebbe I’m just fitter than I look.”

“I’m not sure that I’m that fit,” Mildred said uncertainly, peering over the

edge of the chasm. It descended into a darkness that suggested no small depth.

Mac shrugged. “It’s okay by me, missy. You fall down there and get chilled, it

just means one less for the ritual. No skin off me.”

“Nice to know you care,” Mildred muttered laconically.

The giant with the homemade blaster gestured down the divide, swinging the giant

pieces of metal as though they were weightless.

“No way we’re jumping here. If we go down a little, then it’ll be easier.”

“Suits me,” Mildred replied. “Lead the way, big man.”

Much to her surprise, he did. Turning his back on them, he wandered along the

edge of the chasm like a man leading a Sunday-school outing.

J.B. and Ryan both furrowed their brows, exchanging puzzled looks. Their captors

were certainly a contrary mixture. On the one hand, they had kept the group

under a close guard with their blasters, yet they were seemingly slapdash about

such elementary precautions as turning their backs on their prisoners. Like the

sec men in the redoubt, they had spent too long in an enclosed atmosphere—one

underground, one trapped by the valley and the freakish weather conditions—to

have any conception of outside enemies and their tactics.

Ryan surveyed the surrounding area. The storm had died down to a bluster at this

point, the dust on the ground stirring in the small eddies and whorls of the

wind. Denser clouds obscuring parts of the valley bespoke of areas where the

storms still raged. There was no sign of life, and little cover. The trees were

few and far between, stripped bare of life and standing starkly in the

landscape. The earth was flat; if not originally this way, then it had been

pared down years of storms and harsh hurricanes and zephyrs scouring its

surface.

“How do people live in this?” Krysty asked softly, mirroring Ryan’s thoughts.

“They don’t,” he replied quietly. “They exist.”

“Isn’t that what we all do?” Mildred queried.

Ryan’s face cracked in a grimace that could have been grim humor. His scar was

puckered white by the elements.

“Some mebbe exist more than others,” he said.

The only reply was a shove in the back. The one-eyed warrior, acting on

instinct, spun. Tilly stood in front of him, the tip of a long and wickedly

jagged hunting knife touching the end of his nose.

Her voice was sibilant and all the more threatening for it. “Philosophy doesn’t

grow crops, doesn’t appease the gods. It does nothing but make you sit on your

spreading ass all day doing jackshit. And it may get you cut up if you don’t

shut up and follow Tod.”

If nothing else, at least Ryan now knew that the giant had a name. The one-eyed

man held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and turned to follow the giant

along the lip of the chasm.

Mac laughed in the humorless, grating way that was beginning to act as an

irritant, and gestured with his blaster that they should follow Ryan.

Dean and Krysty fell into step, followed by Mildred and J.B. Jak stayed back to

last, dragging his heels and eying Mac with barely disguised hatred.

Two of the other captors exchanged looks over their blasters, one of them

shivering. Mac grinned wryly.

“You don’t say much, whitey,” he directed at Jak.

“Action better,” Jak replied.