James Axler – Road Wars

If it wasn’t the mercy of eternal death, then it could only be madness. The posse had been less than a dozen yards away. Why was Trader behaving with such crass insanity?

And why hadn’t they

“Why haven’t they chilled you, Trader?” he managed.

“Chilled me, Abe?”

“Yeah.” One eye was finally working its way clear, and he blinked, making out Trader’s figure, squatting at his right side, silhouetted against the opalescent light of the rising sun.

“Who’s going to chill me?” Trader asked, laughing heartily. Pink reflected off the blade of a knife that was beginning to slice through the ropes around Abe’s ankles. “Soon have you up and about again. Keep still, or you might get cut.”

“The posse is” Abe’s voice rose to a saw-blade scream. “The fucking posse, you triple-stupe old bastard.”

Trader patted him on the shoulder. “There, there, Abe. Don’t lose that cool of yours. Man who loses a little cool can finish up with the big heat.”

Now the first flickerings of hope and realization dawned. “Trader you haven’t?”

“Yeah, I have.”

“All of them?”

The last ropes fell away and Abe tried to move, biting his lips so he wouldn’t squeal out at the molten agony of blood beginning to circulate again.

“Sure. All of the sons of bitches.”

“Didn’t hear a thing.”

“Razor comes in like a panther in the night.”

“You mean you”

“See for yourself, Abe.”

THE SUN WAS RISING clear of the Washington mountains to the east. Abe tottered upright like a weak-kneed old drunk, moaning at the pain, with Trader at his shoulder to steady him over the rough ground. The fire was now completely out, just a pile of soft white ash remaining, with the few unturned stubs of twigs scattered around it.

And the bodies lay in a rough circle around the center of the camp.

Abe already felt sick from the beating and the privation and the lack of anything to drink. But even at his best the sight of the corpses would have brought him to the brink of dropping to his knees to throw up. He had never in all his brutal life seen so much blood in one place.

It was nothing short of a miracle that an old man like the Trader had been able to come creeping in out of the twilight and slit the throat of every member of the posse, without a single one waking to face his death.

He fought for control over his heaving guts, counting the scattered dead. “Eight,” he said.

“Never got around to counting them,” Trader replied. “Too busy chilling them.”

Every single one had a small, deep cut on the right side of his throat, below the ear, opening up the major artery, loosing a torrent of crimson. Death would have come quickly, within a matter of seconds.

“How did you keep them quiet and still while you was slicing them, Trader?”

The older man shrugged his shoulders as though it were such an obvious question it didn’t really need an answer. “Just held them down.”

“Yeah,” Abe said, moving back a few paces as he realized that his feet were dabbling in the edge of the dull lake of blood. There were gallons and gallons, already congealing around the edges, a sticky skin forming on the top. The first blowflies of the morning were beginning to gather for the unbelievable feast.

“No more trouble, Abe.”

“Guess not.”

“You feeling fit enough to start moving again? There’s some bits of rabbit, deer and stuff that they were eating. But I guess it all got kind of covered”

“I’ll wait awhile.” He paused. “Thanks, Trader.”

“Never should need to thank anyone, you know. Sign of weakness, Abe.”

“Sorry.” He laughed. “I know. Never apologize, either. Can we get away from here? Smell of death’s getting to me.”

“Sure thing. Head up for Seattle and wait for Ryan to come and meet us.”

“Sounds good.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Fur hunters,” J.B. announced.

There were three men in the group, creeping along the dead ground of a ridge opposite Ryan and the Armorer, invisible to the small diseased band of stickles, but in the full sight of the two friends.