James Axler – Road Wars

“Where?”

“Here and there. Plenty of small villes around. Sometimes I go as far as Denver. Plenty of cold ones there.”

“What did you chill the deer with?” J.B. asked. “What kind of blasters you got up here?”

“Oh, just a long-barrel musket. Nothing else. With my sight I’m not a good shot. I was hunting when you arrived. Or I’d have seen you or heard you coming. I always come and welcome strangers. Gets lonely. Not many visitors this far off the trails. But I can always go and talk to my friends in the houses and the church and the school and all.”

Malachi Gribble smiled again. He stood and pushed back his chair.

Ryan and J.B. also stood. “You said you’d got a bed for us for the night, Malachi?” Ryan asked.

“Indeed I do. Best in the house. Sure you don’t want to bring up your wag for safety?”

“Safe where it is, thanks.” J.B. wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “If you just show us”

Cribble’s own house was little more than a shotgun shack. But he had proudly showed them his workshop out back, near the gas generator. It was wonderfully equipped with all manner of tools, and was spotlessly clean. And was more than twice as big as the actual house.

“Keep your gas in that green tank?” J.B. had asked.

“Yeah. Trade some of my stuffed animals around for it. Folks like them. Specially barons. Some times they bring me bears and wolves and muties they’ve chilled and get me to render them more lifelike than the living. That’s my motto.”

“Muties?”

“Oh, mutie animals only. I keep thewell, special ones to come and be my friends here. There’s always space for more friends, in life, isn’t there? In the mansion of Malachi Gribble there are many rooms.”

THE ROOM HE SHOWED to Ryan and J.B. had two narrow beds in it, each piled high with ragged and filthy blankets.

After the little man had left them, they looked at each other, grinning.

“Crazier than a shithouse rat,” the Armorer commented.

“Agreed. Still, beats sleeping in the armawag. Can always wash off the fleas in the morning.” He paused, lowering his voice. “And help ourselves to some of his gas.”

The door was sturdy with a good strong bolt on it, and J.B. threw it across.

“There. Still, if he’s only got a black-powder musket, I guess there’s not much to fear.”

Ryan thought for a moment about the bullet wound in the back of the young woman’s neck. It had looked like a high-velocity round had done the damage.

J.B. laid the 12-gauge Smith amp; Wesson against the side of his bed, placing the Uzi on the floor, within easy reach of his hand. He didn’t bother to pull off his combat boots. “Anywhere to piss in the night?”

“Window.” Ryan looked around the room and saw a low cupboard in one corner. He opened the door and spotted the gleam of white porcelain. “Thunder pot in here,” he said.

To try to wash down the noxious meal, Ryan had drunk a lot of water from the chipped glass jug, and he suspected that he might not make it through the night. But he laid down his weapons and eased himself under the blankets on the bed nearest the undraped window, wincing at the stench.

“He been wrapping dead bear guts in these?”

“Kind of ripe,” J.B. agreed.

Both men were tired and, feeling secure behind the stout bolted door, they quickly fell asleep.

THERE WAS a bright moon.

Ryan lay still for a few moments, his eye taking in his surroundings. Something had disturbed him, and he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

One of the first things you learned about survival in Deathlands was that being awakened in the night, in a strange environment, could be profoundly hazardous. But that didn’t mean you leaped into instant, clumsy life. Better to take a dozen heartbeats and wait and watch, without giving a clue to anyone that you had actually returned from sleep.

The square of the window was brilliantly lighted, throwing a block of silver across the room, showing the door, still securely locked and bolted.