less than three inches in length, ending in toes that lacked nails.
At the shoulders there were the stubs of what looked like the wings of a
prehistoric flying reptile. The crucified baby had two heads, one with only a
residual stump of a skull, hardly visible in the shadows. The ribs were
appallingly distorted, running more from top to bottom than from side to side,
and the pelvis was strangely tilted, obscenely large for the rest of the torso.
A long thin dagger with a hilt of twisted silver wire was pushed through the
crossed feet. A second blade pinned the right hand. A third was pressed through
the scrawny throat. Blood darkened the tiles all around the body. Hunaker
touched it with the toe of her new tan boots, watching it crumble to powder.
“Been here for years. Mebbe twenty or more. Could be plenty more.”
There was a message that had apparently been scrawled with a finger, using blood
that was still warm and fresh. The words misspelled and the letters clumsy, it
was difficult to read, but clearly a warning:
“Kep oute for ewer ore dy.” It was signed, “The Keper.”
“You said Quint couldn’t read or write,” Ryan said to Krysty.
“Yeah. No reason to lie, was there?”
Ryan shook his head. “Guess not. So, if he’s as fuckin’ old as he looks, an’
he’s the Keeper… who was the Keeper who wrote this?”
J.B. pushed past him. “Who cares, friend? Let’s go look at some guns.”
And what guns they were.
Some of them were at least three hundred years old, looking frail and dusty
inside cases of Plexiglas. The party split up to wander around, and the huge
room echoed with their cries of amazement at the wonders. Ryan walked with
Krysty and J.B.
It wasn’t just a boggling array of blasters. There were all kinds of daggers and
swords and axes. Many of the guns had descriptive cards under them. One card
read, “Pair English flintlock night pistols, circa 1712, made in England by
James Freeman. Screw-barrel guns fired buckshot instead of conventional ball,
making it easier to hit a target at night, hence their name.”
“What kind of range would that have, J.B.?” asked Ryan.
“I guess about twenty feet on a good day, or night,” replied the Armorer, and
moved on to explore on his own.
In the next case was a delicate sword with a blade that tapered to a needle
point. Krysty put her arm on Ryan’s, squeezing against him. “When do we go,
lover?” she asked.
“Soon. Mebbe tomorrow. Day after for sure. Sword like that wouldn’t be worth
mutie shit in a firefight.”
The card read, “English small sword, officer’s. Circa 1765, steel hilt, with
colichemarde blade. Grip bound in silver wire. Pierced pommel and guard. Blade
length, thirty-two inches.”
“Look at the length of this mother, J.B.,” yelled Okie, her face pressed against
a case across the hall. The long dark hair in her ponytail swung back and forth
with her excitement. Dix joined her, reading slowly from the card.
“Model eighteen-forty-two rifle-musket. Fired the seven-forty grain Minie ball.
Sights up to…up to nine hundred yards.”
“Over a fuckin’ half mile,” gasped Okie. “That right, J.B.?”
“I’d back it up to about eighty yards.”
“Look at the barrel on it,” said Ryan, joining them. “Must be over five feet
long.”
“Couldn’t get that inside your coat,” grinned Krysty.
“Wouldn’t want to.”
“You goin’ to change that LAPA now?” asked J.B. “On through there, under that
arch, is an armory of modern stuff. Get somethin’ new.”
“What?”
J.B.’s sallow face warmed with a smile, and his eyes twinkled behind the thick
lenses of his glasses. “Go see. I saw somethin’ you might like.”
Ryan walked quickly away, hearing the click of Krysty’s dark blue cowboy boots
following. He slowed down and waited for her, passing Finnegan and Hennings,
immaculate in their matching blue jumpers.
“How’s the hand, Ryan?” asked the fat man.
He inspected it. A little dried blood was crusted around the cut from the
mutie’s spear tip, but it looked clean. Ryan knew that out east there were
villages of “dirties” who lived in mud huts and used poison on their arrows. The