James Axler – Road Wars

The interior had only just had time to warm up, but the Armorer switched off the engine to conserve their precious fuel and closed the ob slits to keep out the penetrating wind and the driving snow.

They waited in near darkness, as the wag became colder.

“EASING,” J.B. said, breaking a long silence between the two old friends.

“Good.” Ryan stretched to get some of the stiffness out of his muscles.

“Fancy going up top to keep an eye out for any road problems, Ryan?”

“No.”

J.B. laughed. “But you will?”

“Yeah.”

RYAN WRAPPED his long white silk scarf around his throat, tucking the weighted ends inside his collar. He hunched his shoulders and blinked into the freezing wind. The snow had almost stopped, but the temperature was still way below freezing and the highway was icy and treacherous.

He glanced down at his chron, seeing that it was already more than three and a half hours since they’d left the ville of Mitchell Springs.

The turbocharged six cylinders roared into life again, and they were once more moving northwest.

They’d only gone a mile or so along the snaking blacktop when Ryan spotted movement ahead of them, three figures, slipping through the rutted snow, about a hundred yards in front.

“I see them.” J.B.’s voice crackled in the earphones that were helping to keep Ryan’s ears warm.

“Slow right down. I got a feeling that I can guess who they are and Yeah.”

It was the trio of hunters that they’d seen carrying out the massacre at the stickle’s camp. One of them stepped out into the middle of the road, waving his arms over his head. J.B. slowed and stopped fifty paces away from the man.

Ryan called out to him, making sure that the Steyr was very visible. “What do you want?”

The man was flushed, and one hand kept touching himself across the stomach, as if he were in some kind of discomfort. “Supposed to be a ville close by, friend.”

“You mean Mitchell Springs?” Ryan kept a careful eye on the other two men.

“Yep, that’s it. Far?”

“Take you a good hour in this weather.”

“Got caught in the snow. Seems warmer now.” He wiped sweat from his pale forehead.

Ryan thought it had actually grown much colder, but he kept quiet.

“Think we can get beds and food there?” one of the other men asked.

“Reckon so.”

“They got a medic there?” the third man, who seemed to be breathing unusually hard and fast, queried.

“Don’t know.” Ryan stared at him. “You sick?”

“We all feel crooked, friend. Some sort of fever. Headaches like the worst of a jolt downer. And we all got us churned up bellies.”

“Shitting sickness?” J.B. called from behind the driver’s ob slit.

None of the three hunters answered him, looking at one another in silence.

Ryan lowered himself farther into the hatch. “Could be you good old boys been rooting where you shouldn’t.”

“What the fuck’s that mean, mister?”

“Have a real good time in Mitchell Springs. Your sort of folks.” Ryan lowered the hatch again, giving J.B. the signal to move on.

The wag started up, past the three dying men, leaving them behind. Ryan watched them out of the rear ob slit, until a bend in the road concealed them from him.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The dead member of the Slaves of Sin that lay at Doc’s feet in the rustling stillness of the barn had fouled himself, the stench flooding the darkness.

Doc stood quite still, holding the Le Mat on a second man. But the third member of the flagellants was poised behind him, by Judas’s stall, a gun drilling a hole in the old man’s back.

“Put it down, unbeliever, now! Now, I said.”

Despite the tension of the moment, Doc felt amazingly calm. At last he was going to die. After all the adventures of the time-trawlings and the eternity of loneliness and separation, it was going to end.

Oddly he found that he didn’t really mind all that much. He would miss Ryan and Krysty and the others, even miss the stubborn Mildred Wyeth. But he would finally be rejoining his lost wife and children and that didn’t seem too bad a trade.