James Axler – Stoneface

“In that case,” Ryan said, “give us what you’ve got.”

The meal was on their table in a jiffy, but after looking at it, Doc mumbled that he wouldn’t have minded waiting a little longer.

The steaks were rump, and tougher than the old bull they came from. The vegetablesstring beans, tomatoes and baked potatoeswere at least easy on the palate and the digestion.

The woman brought over a pot of coffee and cups. “Take your time, let yourself out when you’re done,” she announced. “I’ve got to get ready.”

“For what?” Krysty inquired.

“Zadfrak’s send-off.”

“When did he die?” Mildred asked.

The woman heaved her downsloping shoulders. “Don’t know if he has or hasn’t. I just got told to get ready for the function. Attendance is mandatory.”

With that, she hustled into a back room and disappeared from sight.

Doc poured himself a cup of coffee. “In my experience, a funeral is not scheduled until the subject is deceased.”

He raised the cup to his lips, took a cautious sip and a sudden delight shone from his blue eyes. “By the Three Kennedys! Coffee! Real honest-to-Juan-Valdez coffee !”

No one bothered to ask who Juan Valdez was, but everyone else had a cup, too.

“Not much difference between this and sub,” Jak said, after swallowing a mouthful.

“That’s because your taste buds have been eroded by years of neglect,” Doc replied, gleefully filling his cup again. “I can feel the caffeine caressing my nerve endings already.”

Frowning, Krysty said, “Guns, fuel, electricity and real coffee. Can’t think of a more undeserving lot to have all these blessings.”

That remark subdued Doc’s happy exclamations, but not his thirst for the brew. Everyone sat and waited, content with one cup apiece, while Doc finished the pot.

When they left the little eatery, night had fallen and the streets of Helskel were nearly deserted except for a few merchants closing down their stalls. Dust blew in the streets, a cold night wind eddying it along in eye-stinging clouds. Carried by the wind was the sound of activity, northward of Helskel’s perimeter. The faint noises were of metal on metal, tools clinking, hammers pounding.

“Building something there,” Jak stated, gesturing. Half mile.”

Ryan peered into the darkness. Fleur’s thinly veiled threat about curiosity chilling cocky cats came to mind.

“Let’s get to our rooms,” he suggested. “Wouldn’t hurt to lock the doors.”

“If Hellstrom meant us harm,” Doc said, “he’s going the long away around the barn. He certainly would have disarmed us.”

J.B. took off his spectacles and wiped the grit-spotted lenses on a sleeve. “Good idea to stay on orange alert, no matter what.”

They entered the empty saloon and mounted the stairs to their quarters. Once in the room he shared with Krysty, Ryan chair-locked the door. Though they unbuckled their gun belts, they kept their blasters close to hand.

The feather mattress was comfortable, but Krysty’s body was tense. She held Ryan’s hand as he stroked her hair.

“This place is a black pit,” she said quietly.

“A pesthole ville, all right,” Ryan replied in the same low tone.

“No. There’s a something really terrible lurking here.”

“We’ll be on the road at daybreak, lover. We’ll never see Hellstrom or this place again.”

“It’s not Hellstrom or even Helskel I fear. It’s the resurrection of a predark evil, an evil that may have helped pave the way for the nukecaust.”

“So they managed to get their hands on a few working predark artifacts. Some people have managed to find stockpiles. It’s not commonplace, but it’s not all that rare, either.”

“You don’t understand,” Krysty said in a faraway voice. “The people here, they’re not really people. They’re shadow duplicates.”

“Shadow whats ?”

“We’ve been taught that before the nukecaust, war, rape and murder were aberrations in an otherwise smoothly functioning world.”

“So?”

“Mebbe maniacs like Charlie Manson were the advance guard of the new order that survives, even thrives in the Deathlands. This is their world now, and mebbe we’re the abnormal ones.”

“You mean we’re the mutants now?”

Krysty hitched over on her side, her breath warm on Ryan’s cheek. “We’re worse than the mutants,” she answered. “Because mutants at least fill some niche. Deathlands created them. But people like us, people who believe in a certain decency, and wish to live in peace with one another, may be in the minority. Mebbe skydark was autumn for the human race, and you and me and Dean and Doc and the test who share similar values and dreams have been displaced by the shadow people. They love the atmosphere of random violence and constant fear. The shadow people have adapted to it, they feed off it, they marvel in it. They’re the hollow duplicates of humans, and they wouldn’t want the predark world to return even if it were within their power to rebuild it.”