James Axler – Trader Redux

“Quiet,” the teenager said. His red eyes turned to Krysty and she saw the bad news written there as clear as on a highway billboard.

“They’re dying,” she said. “Mildred says they’ve both got terminal rad sickness.”

“Know why,” he stated flatly.

Mildred had gone into the kitchen, carrying a bowl of fouled water. “You know the source of their illness, Jak?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Come see.”

He led the way out to the large barn where the Warrens’ rig was stored. Their wag horses were in a small separate corral to the side of the building and Mildred looked at them, noticing that both animals looked conspicuously unwell. One was repeatedly rubbing its head against a fence post, and a large abscess opened by its left eye attracted hordes of flies. The other was trembling as if it had a feverish ague. Its hindquarters were streaked with a greeny-yellowish discharge.

Jak caught her look and nodded, his white hair blowing back in the light breeze. “Yeah,” he said. “Them too.”

One of the pair of double doors stood wide open, and they all hesitated on the threshold.

“Gaia! The taint of evil’s so strong here I can hardly even breathe.”

Jak took a couple of steps into the gloom then stopped. “We got to leave,” he said.

“The barn?” Mildred shook her head. “We have to see what it is in here.”

“No. Show you. Then all leave. Straightaway.”

Nobody spoke. He moved toward the canvas-topped Conestoga wag, feet slurring through the powdery straw and dust.

Mildred kept thinking that what they were doing was madness. They should turn right now and run away as far as they could possibly go and never come back. Despite that, she allowed Jak to lead them around the rear of the rig, where the stained cloth had been pulled open.

He hopped inside while they gathered around, their eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the semidarkness. The treasure of the Warrens had been partly untied, a single layer of the wrapping keeping it hidden.

“There,” Jak said, uncovering it.

The “treasure” was a little over nine feet long, in white-painted metal. It was scratched, chipped and dented. One of the four tail fins was broken off. The nose cone had a small split in it, showing a mass of colored wires, in a rainbow tangle of confusion.

Krysty felt a deathly cold sickness sweep over her. She could read the set of numbers and initials along the side of the ICBM, giving its provenance, its trade name, neatly stenciled in dark blue lettering Custer.

Worst of all was the gash that had been sliced in the flank of the nuke missile, nearly eighteen inches long, revealing the leaking innards of its rad-potent warhead.

It was Mildred who broke the empty silence. “Let us go.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

The force of the attack threw Ryan forward and to the side, and he landed awkwardly on his right arm. The weight of the stickie pressed him down into the turmoil of ancient books and magazines, and he felt them crackling beneath him. Dust rose in a thick cloud, almost choking Ryan.

Though he had been taken by surprise, the one-eyed warrior’s combat training came to his aid. He managed to get his left arm up, parrying a slashing blow to his face. The hundreds of tiny suckers across the palms and fingers of a stickie meant that it could grip and tear off great slices of skin from a victim.

But the mutie was quick, trying to fasten its suckers to his head. Ryan felt a chunk of hair and scalp ripped away, and warm blood trickled down the back of his neck. He kicked out, feeling his boot connect with solid, muscular flesh. He heard the stickie grunt with shock, and the pressure eased for a moment.

Snatching the second’s relief, he rolled to one side, slipping in the mountain of dust-dry paper. As Ryan snatched for the blaster, the gibbering mutie came at him again, its mouth open, showing him the double row of needled teeth, the stinking breath clotting in his face.

He had the SIG-Sauer in his hand, just clear of the holster, when the thing grabbed at the barrel. With the suckers, its grasp was unbelievably powerful and it simply tore the blaster from him, taking some skin from his fingers.