James Axler – The Mars Arena

“Feels like a cold sauna out here,” Mildred said.

J.B. looked at the drenched ground. “There’s a good chance we’re going to leave a trail wherever we go.”

Ryan nodded, surveying the terrain around them. “We stick to the rocks so we don’t leave tracks.”

“Yeah, but that’s going to put us working the high ground. Better chance of the brushwooders seeing us.”

“We get a few more miles behind us, they won’t have a chance at all.”

“Downhill,” Jak said, “mebbe melting snow wash away all tracks.” The albino teenager sat tending a slow cook fire nestled between a ring of rocks he’d evidently placed. He turned a long spit that held four animals that had roasted nicely.

“And mebbe we’ll end up trying to cross some awfully flooded lands,” Ryan added. “Up top we should be able to get a better lay of the terrain. Pick a good spot to cross at instead of being chased into a bad one.”

“Where’d you get breakfast?” Mildred asked.

Jak waved an arm. “Little animals kept sticking heads up not far away. I pitched rocks. And I got these.” He poured out a pouch that contained bright red cherry tomatoes and dark purple berries.

“Growing wild?” Ryan asked.

Jak nodded. “Have to look some. Color was pretty easy to see this morning against snow.”

“By the Three Kennedys!” Doc hunkered down and picked up one of the tomatoes, which was about the size of his thumb. “Jak, lad, have I mentioned lately how valuable an asset I consider you to be?”

The albino just looked at Doc, then turned the spit another notch.

“I find myself constantly enthralled by the vagaries and mysteries of Mother Nature even in these godforsaken lands.” Doc rolled the cherry tomato between his fingers, as if savoring the taste by touch. He tilted his head and glanced at Mildred. “Concerning all the volcanic activity and radiation residue, would it be wise to partake of this repast?”

“Those fruits could be holding in some radioactive waste,” Mildred admitted.

“If do,” Jak said, “can’t be much.” He waved at the roasting meat. “They eating it.”

“Then let’s eat,” J.B. said. “Small as they are, if there was anything in them going to kill a body, they’d have died off.”

Ryan squatted long enough to pull off a haunch. The animal looked like a ground squirrel of some type, but was the size of a chicken. Surprisingly there was a fair amount of meat on the bones.

He dropped the Steyr over his shoulder and took up a handful of tomatoes and berries. There appeared to be plenty of both. He walked to a nearby outcrop and unlocked his knees until he was in a squatting position that wouldn’t allow him to be easily skylined against the mountain.

Krysty came up behind him, her hands as laden as his. Ryan looked at her, seeing the pinched worry lines over the bridge of her nose as she stared out beyond the pass. “Did you have any bad dreams about Dean?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t remember dreaming at all, I was so tired. I know I stood watch, stayed awake during the whole time, but I don’t remember that too clearly, either.”

Ryan knew something was bothering his red-haired lover, but she also knew he wouldn’t ask. When she was ready to talk about it, she would. It was how things were between them.

Scanning the eastern horizon, Ryan said, “It’s been a long time. I need to see him again.”

Krysty put an arm across his back and hugged him. “I know, lover. We’ve all missed him.”

“I have to ask myself, though, if he’s going to be ready to leave the friends he’s made at that school and take up this hard traveling life of ours again.”

DEAN WAS READY to be anywhere in all of Deathlands except where he was right at that moment. He sat in one of the straight-backed chairs outside Nicholas Brody’s office, arms crossed over his chest and fidgeting. He couldn’t seem to find a comfortable place to put his hands.

Jake sat across from him on the small desk where the secretary kept all the records and bits of school business intact and organized. A spray of dried flowers from one of the gardens filled a light green blown-glass vase from the art department.