James Axler – Road Wars

Doc coughed. “I fear that our companions will most certainly be put to the torture and then slain within the next twenty-four hours. Do we agree?” Neither of them said anything. “Ah, well, we don’t disagree.”

“So?” Dean punched his right fist into his left palm. “So what, Doc?”

“I surmise that Simon will want to know what we are doing. He has the numbers, so he could spare three or four to creepy-crawl in the darkness.”

Krysty stood. “I think that makes sense, Doc. Yeah. So, let’s get ready for them.”

DEAN WAS TO REMAIN in the house, moving silently around, catfooted, never staying in one room for more than thirty seconds, checking out the windows on every side, as well as climbing up to the attic and watching from there. He was armed with his own blaster as well as one of the ranch’s hunting rifles.

Krysty took the outside perimeter, working on the assumption that she was actually fittest and fastest. She also probably had the best night vision of any of them. She was content to just carry her own Smith amp; Wesson double-action 640.

“And I shall busy myself by circling the house and also keep a weather eye open for trouble in the barns and outbuildings.” Doc rapped the floor with the ferrule of his sword stick. “With this and my Le Mat, I feel total confidence in my ability to rout any number of the ungodly.”

“At any sign of trouble, Dean, you open fire. Doc and I head straight back here. You unlock the back door, into the kitchen, so’s we can get in.”

“Sure.”

AS THE NIGHT MOVED ON, Dean was aware of how much the old house settled and shifted, sun-warmed timbers still shrinking, doors and window frames contracting and creaking. Every sound brought the boy spinning around, fingers tight on the butt of his 9 mm Browning, waiting, trembling.

Krysty stood in the cover of the orchard, her nostrils catching the freshness of the apples and the plums, waiting to get her sight adjusted to the darkness. The moon had vanished behind the gathering clouds, and it had become much colder in the past hour. She could see the glow of the camp fires of the religious crazies, taste wood smoke.

Doc stepped as quietly as he could into the largest barn, through the big front doors that were the only entry into the wood-framed building. There was the smell of horses, and be could hear the animals moving a little uneasily, hooves shifting in their stalls, as they caught the scent of a human.

He walked to the far end, where he knew that the bloody-minded mule, Judas, was penned, two clear, empty stalls away from any of the other animals.

“Greetings, you old bastard,” Doc said, dodging back as the mule made a lightning-fast attempt to take the ear off his head, the huge curved teeth clicking together, missing by inches. Doc swung his sword stick, rattling the silver lion’s-head hilt between Judas’s eyes.

The traditional pleasantries exchanged, Doc rubbed his hand down the animal’s neck, leaning against the side of the stall. “Maybe we should turn you out, you devil’s walking parody. Send the ungodly and unwashed scattering like chaff before the cleansing wind, then return here with Mildred and Jak on your back. Be good to What?”

The mule had looked suddenly away from him. For a moment Doc thought Judas was going to snap at him again, and he stepped quickly to one side, lifting his cane in readiness. But the long, demonic head was turned toward the doors, the spiteful eyes glinting in the gloom of the barn.

Doc found that someone seemed to have sucked all of the oxygen from the dusty building, and he tried to draw a reassuring breath. “What?” he whispered.

The filtered moonlight that came through the myriad cracks in the walls of the ancient barn gave a strange, undersea quality to the atmosphere, like being inside a wrecked galley, settled on a fathoms-deep reef.

Doc backed away into one of the empty stalls, the butt of the ponderous, gold-engraved Le Mat feeling cold and slick against his hand. He still held the hilt of the sheathed sword stick in his left hand. Realizing this, the old man bolstered the revolver and drew the blade of Toledo steel, laying the ebony shell in the straw at his feet.