James Axler – Starfall

“The rest of you fall in if you’re going with us,” Ryan said. “Keep up or we’ll leave you behind. We’re only go­ing to live as long as we can move quick.”

The group hesitated only a moment, then got under way. Ryan had Krysty and Mildred fall in next, and he brought up drag himself.

Even with the children, the group moved quickly. Jak and J.B. moved quicker, racing through the junkyard until they reached the high wooden wall securing the back. Most of the wall was constructed of old planks, but sheets of rusted tin and boards that looked different than the original wood covered areas where men or animals had broken through.

Jak and J.B. chose one of the tin covered areas and hacked their way through with a camp ax. The blasterfire had died away, and no matter what had happened between the coldhearts and Naylor’s sec team, Ryan figured it only meant bad news for the companions.

“Clear!” Jak called, throwing aside the last piece of tin. The albino led the way through.

Ryan hunkered down under cover, gazing back along the two aisles he could see between the wag wreckage. Per­spiration clung to him, making the feces stuck to his clothes and skin feel even worse.

“The dogs,” Krysty whispered from nearby as Doc urged his charges through the wall. Her green eyes looked haunted, fever bright.

“What about the dogs?” Mildred prompted.

“They’ve picked up our scents,” Krysty said.

“How do you know?” Ryan demanded.

“I can.. .feel them.” She shook her head, as if she didn’t like the sensation. “It’s Phlorin, lover. Her being in my head is affecting my powers, making them stronger.”

Her words cut into Ryan’s heart, but he shook it off. It was a waste of time worrying about something that he couldn’t do anything about. Getting out of the ville—that would give them the breathing room they needed. Then they’d see what needed to be done.

Mildred and Krysty squeezed through the hole in the fence, and Ryan followed. With the dogs getting their scent, presumably the smell of the dog shit over all their clothes, as well, he knew there’d be little chance of throwing them off track.

THE LAND BROKE AWAY from the ville, falling into a rapid decline as the group neared the river. Judging from the amount of damage from water erosion, Ryan guessed that much of the surrounding land had been submerged at one time. The nukecaust had reshaped much of North America. Besides breaking off much of what had been California, it had also created a huge lake in the northwestern section of the Deathlands. The tidal waves that had rolled in as a result of the earthquakes and tsunamis that had swallowed the West Coast had continued on into the interior and cre­ated a huge lake. The overflow from that had evidently rolled through Idaho for a time.

Small wooden docks made of cast-off lumber jutted into the water. Some were higher than others, indicating the water level was subject to change. Judging from the docks he saw, the river was sometimes as much as thirty feet higher than what it was now, and pushed back over some of the tumbledown wreckage left of Idaho Falls.

Tall grass and cattails, still yellow and trying to make a comeback from the earlier flood stages of the river, lined the sharp incline leading to the river. A handful of boats was tied up at the docks. The morning fishing was done, but men remained at the docks mending equipment and nets. Women and children stood around fifty-five-gallon drums filled with burning wood, smoking the fish that had been caught.

Wag engines roared in the distance, growing closer.

None of the boats, however, were equipped with engines. Masts stood proudly in all of them, the sails furled. Only two were big enough for the companions and the hangers-on they’d picked up.

Knowing they had no choice, Ryan commanded the oth­ers to ground behind the ville debris lining the riverbank, then waved Jak and J.B. to him. They went toward the long boat Ryan chose, walking in a loose triangle.

The afternoon sun beat down on the riverbank. The sand deposits scouring the sides of the incline were already nearly dry, as if the rainstorm that had come earlier had never happened at all.