James Axler – Road Wars

“Grief burns to the very core of his soul, Ryan. By the Three Kennedys! I know the feeling well enough. To lose a wife and a child”

He paused as Krysty strode along the hall and joined them. She was wearing a white silk blouse, hanging loose over dark blue riding breeches. The heels of her blue leather Western boots clicked on the wooden floor.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. “Don’t suppose you fried up enough breakfast for anyone else, did you, lover? Of course you didn’t.”

Doc rose and bowed. “I would deem it an honor to be allowed to go and cook some”

Krysty laughed. “No, thanks, Doc. Best wait until everyone else is up and around. Then we can get organized.”

J.B. appeared, wiping his wire-rimmed spectacles on a length of clean linen cloth. “Weather tastes good,” he said. “Fresh northerly. Go at first light.”

“That smells almost like coffee.” Mildred stood behind J.B., one hand resting on his arm. She was stocky in build, with her hair knotted into tiny beaded plaits.

Like Doc, Mildred came from another time.

She’d been thirty-six years old, unmarried, one of the leading world authorities on cryogenics and cryo-surgery. Her other claim to fame was that she had won the silver medal in the free pistol-shooting in the last ever Olympics in Miami in 1996.

Then, in December of the year 2000, the black woman had gone into the hospital for some minor abdominal surgery.

Things had gone wrong.

Badly wrong.

With the monumental irony that the blind lords of chaos so love, Dr. Mildred Wyeth had been frozen in an attempt to preserve her life.

Then the missiles had blackened the skies and civilization disappeared up its own nuclear-powered fundament.

Along with a number of other patients, Mildred had been locked into the dreamless sleep for nearly a century, until awakened by Ryan and the others, and brought back to life in Deathlands.

Now everyone was up and bustling about.

Except for the youngest of the group, Dean Cawdor.

It had only been in the past year or so that Ryan had known that he had a son. His brief sexual encounter with Dean’s mother, Sharona, had occupied only a few minutes of Ryan’s life. Then, like a bolt of lightning at a summer picnic, he found the boy, then ten years old.

“Anyone seen Dean?” he asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and getting up from the table.

“Heard movement when I came past,” Mildred replied, looking around. “Here he is. Morning, young man.”

“Hi.” Dean’s black, curly hair was glistening, flat against his head where he’d stuck his head under the pump.

Ryan looked at his friends. They were all together.

Chapter Two

The dawn air tasted of sagebrush.

It was a heaven of sunrise, the first spears of light darting into the golden tops of the cottonwoods alongside the small creek. A trio of delicate-necked deer turned as one at the sound of the front door opening and boots ringing on the planks of the porch. For a frozen moment they stood there, sniffing the damp-scented air. Then they darted away toward the rising ground to the east of the ranch house.

Jak watched them go. “Freedom,” he said.

“Looks like being a good one.” Krysty took a deep breath, sucking in the freshness.

The squat shape of the LAV-25 stood ready and waiting in the shadows to the west of the spread. It had been loaded with all the supplies and gas that could be spared, along with tools, water and ammo.

Everyone stood in the morning sunlight, nobody quite knowing what to do or say.

Doc broke the awkwardness.

“Despite the sun, I fear that the chill air will play the old Harry with my lumbago,” he said. “So, friends, stand not upon the order of your going. But go, in the name of God, go!” He offered a firm handshake to J.B. and then to Ryan. “Take the best care of yourselves.”

“What’s plumbago, Doc?” Dean asked eagerly. “Sounds like something you eat.”

The old man ruffled the boy’s hair. “Not quite, young man. Rather something that eats you, but let that pass. Yes, let that pass.”