Red Equinox
9 in the Deathland series James Axler
Red Equinox
9 in the Deathland series James Axler
Chapter One
Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
That small rain down can rain? DOC TANNER WAS truly happy. The assorted horrors that had blighted his mind and brought him teetering to the far edge of madness had faded away from him like the dew in the morning.
Oh, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.
It was a fine summer afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska, in the year 1896.
He was twenty-eight years old and had been married for just a few weeks over five years.
“Such happiness, Emily,” he said in his rich, deep voice, smiling at her.
His wife smiled back and reached out to him, squeezing his hand between her fingers. She wore a dress of flowered gingham, with a bonnet trimmed in white lace. Her high button boots had picked up shreds of dry grass and seed from the meadow where they’d come for their picnic.
The children played on a patterned blanket close by. Two-year-old Rachel, toddling bravely on stumpy little legs, laughed as she vainly reached out to capture a bright butterfly. Her baby brother, Jolyon, approaching his first birthday, was content to lie on his back and kick his bare feet at the soaring golden ball that floated in the perfect blue sky. An angled parasol protected his sensitive skin from the direct heat.
Oh, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.
Emily had a beautiful voice, a trained contralto that thrilled the air.
The remains of their meal lay spread over the damask cloth some slices of honey-roasted ham; three different jars of pickles; half a new-baked loaf, and some butter wrapped in damp muslin to help keep it cool; a bowl of lettuce and tomatoes, wilting a little now; and a crock containing several different cheeses.
“You always like cheese, don’t you, dearest?” Doc said. “I mean that you used to like it, didn’t you?”
Emily turned to him, her smile sliding away into bewilderment. In the distance Doc could hear the faint sound of rumbling thunder. Clouds were gathering along the horizon of the prairie, threatening a storm. The horse that stood patiently in the shade of a clump of live oaks, freed from the traces of the wagon, whickered softly.
“Why do you say that I used to like it, my darling? I still do. Most truly.”
Doc blinked. For a moment his vision blurred and he shook his head. His wife’s face, better known even than his own, seemed to shimmer as though a fog had dropped between them.
“Emily” he began, but a clap of thunder drowned out his words. The clouds were coming swiftly toward them, changing color from white to leaden gray to a peculiar pinkish-purple hue. They resembled a livid bruise, he thought.
“The children, beloved,” Emily said. Yes, it was Emily. It was her.
“Indeed. Let us take them to the carriage and get shelter from the storm.”
“I’ll gather everything up. Ready for next time.” She looked at him, and it was as though a great dagger of smooth ice had been thrust into his heart. “Because there will never be another time, Theo, my dear.”
“I know that. By the three! I fear that I disremember what.”
All around him, the grass was growing, sprouting faster, so that baby Jolyon had already vanished. And Rachel’s head barely showed above the waving tips.
“Oh, help me, Papa, for I am frightened,” she cried in a lisping, squeaky voice.
Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
That small rain down can rain?
But the voice wasn’t that of Emily. It was a different, younger voice. Doc knew that he recognized it.
“Quickly, my dearest!”
“Help me with the children, Emily. I can’t see them. The grass is so long that they have simply vanished from sight.”
Smoke.
Now he could smell smoke.
Behind him the horse whinnied and tossed its head, snapping the bridle and galloping away, eyes rolling, hooves pounding like thunder.
“Emily! Emily!”
Doc dropped to his knees, fumbling in the grass, feeling it moving over his skin like sentient human hair. He couldn’t feel the children, but he could hear them, giggling together, their bubbling laughter seeming to come from all around.