James Axler – Shadowfall

Had that not happened, he would have died a scant month later when the skies darkened and the missiles ravaged the world and a civilization passed away.

Now he was one of the exclusive members of the group who traveled with Ryan Cawdor.

Doc had survived experiences that would have turned most men stark mad, but he had paid a high price. Though he was reasonably well balanced most of the time, there were occasions when the pressure of what had happened to him tipped a part of his acute mind sideways.

Now he lay sprawled flat on his back, his mouth sagging open, showing his peculiarly perfect teeth, snoring gently. The huge gold-embossed commemoration Le Mat blaster protruded from its holster on his belt.

Ryan slipped away into the brain-churning blackness of the jump, surrounded by his son and his friends, ready to waken elsewhere.

He closed his eye.

Chapter Two

Ryan blinked his eye open.

His nostrils were immediately filled with the bitter smell of sickness, and he looked down, taking care not to risk moving his head, to see that Dean had puked during the jump. Fortunately it hadn’t gone on the boy’s clothes. More fortunately, it hadn’t gone on Ryan’s clothes, either.

Seeing the small yellow puddle, Ryan felt his own guts heaving in sympathy.

He closed his eye again, trying to breathe through his mouth to minimize the stench.

His only other observation was that the armaglass walls of this particular redoubt gateway were brown, flecked with white, markedly different from the dark gray of the chamber walls back in Maine.

Using the techniques that Krysty had taught him, Ryan slowed his breathing and pulse. He concentrated his imagination on a wall of untouched blue, using the color to blank his mind, taking away a significant proportion of the barely tolerable stress of making a jump.

Doc and Mildred had once had a bitter argument about what precisely happened during a mat-trans jump, going into abstruse scientific theories about reassembled molecules and neutron displacement.

All that everyone in the group agreed on was that jumping left you feeling like you’d just gone eight rounds with a jolt-crazed stickie.

Feeling a little less nauseous, Ryan risked opening his good right eye. His left had been missing since he was a young boy, back in his home ville of Front Royale, up in the Shens, courtesy of his cold-heart brother Harvey.

The chamber swam mistily back into focus.

Now there were signs of life from some of the other members of the group.

J.B. was carefully unfolding his glasses from an inside pocket and replacing them on his sharp nose. He moved so slowly it looked as if he were sitting on broken eggshells.

Mildred was also recovering, using her sleeve to wipe a thread of spittle from a corner of her mouth. Seeing Ryan watching her, she managed a watery grin. “Best fun you can have lying down,” she said quietly.

Dean coughed, doubling over, bringing up a little more bile. He pulled a disgusted face and tried to wriggle sideways, hoping to disassociate himself from the vomit.

“Hi, lover.”

Ryan smiled at Krysty and gripped her hand tightly. “How’s it going?”

“Been better. Been worse.” She shook her head, the sentient mane of flaming crimson hair still pressed tightly to her nape. “On balance I been better.” Her face was as pale as wind-washed bone. “Yeah, I have definitely been better.”

Trader shook his head like a dog emerging from icy waves. “I’ll be hung, quartered and dried for the crows!” He coughed up a mouthful of phlegm and looked for a moment as if he were going to spit it across the chamber. He caught Krysty’s eyes and changed his mind, swallowing it. “I don’t reckon I’ll ever get used to these bastard jumps. Not ever.”

“Amen to that, Trader,” Abe agreed weakly. “Mouth feels like a skunk crapped in it.”

“Sorry about bein’ sick, Dad.”

“Happens to the best of us, son. Just sit still and take it easy until you feel like standing up. Don’t try it too quickly.”

On the other side of the six-sided room, Jak uncoiled himself with the effortless grace of a prairie rattler, steadying himself for a moment on the arma-glass walls. Ryan noticed there was a worm of blood seeping from the albino teenager’s nose.