James Axler Deathlands 037 Demons of Eden

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Outside they circled the great tree, heading for the horse compound. They had
taken only
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden a few steps when Joe emerged from the darkness. The
right sleeve of his buckskin tunic was ripped, and his hand showed a speckling
of blood. The barrel of his blaster drooped toward the ground. In his left
hand he held a small, blocky object.
When he saw the four friends, he stopped in his tracks. None of them spoke.
With eyes clouded with fatigue and the bitterness of defeat, he swept his gaze
across their faces, pausing at Krysty's, then finally settling upon Mildred's.
Joe stepped forward and extended his left hand. Gripped within it was J.B.'s
fedora. The crown was battered, the brim notched and stained with a squiggly
pattern of dried blood.
"I'm sorry" was all he said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
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J.B. had slept for a time, but he had dreamed and the dreams were full of
anthropomorphic shapes, obscene blendings of beast and man. He awakened
suddenly, and his surroundings reminded him that his nightmares weren't all
that removed from his reality.
He lay alone in the depths of the nighted forest and suffered. He had lost a
fair amount of blood from the fang-inflicted gash across the base of his
throat. The back of his head was swollen, and it throbbed in cadence with his
pulse. He figured he was suffering from a mild concussion.
J.B. knew he had gotten off lucky, though. When the wolf had slashed his
throat with razored teeth, missing his jugular by a fractional margin, he had
fallen and struck his head against a stone. The animal had apparently believed
him dead and left him.
The Armorer had awakened alone in the shadows, and his wrist chron told him
that only a few minutes had elapsed. He had also awakened weaponless, his Uzi,
his scattergun and all the spare ammo missing. He heard voices approaching
from the direction of the village and so had climbed back into the cramped
passageway.
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden
Stumbling, dripping blood, feeling his way, he had backtracked through the
tunnel, hoping to return to Little Mountain and the horses. He had no idea of
the fates of Ryan or
Joe, and his thinking was so clouded and fragmented, all he could do was
stagger through the tunnel, flail across the river and stumble up the wooded
slopes.
The effort exhausted him, and he crept into a hollow between two large,
gnarled roots and lay down.
Now J.B.'s thinking was sharper, and he saw by his chron that only three hours
remained until dawn. He doubted Little Mountain was still waiting. A rugged
trek on foot stretched before him, a march he wouldn't have enjoyed even if he
wasn't weak and racked with pain.
But J.B. had lived most of his life in the wild places of Deathlands. He had
spent years on the ragged edge of death, and his inner fiber had been forged
into an iron toughness. It was a point of pride with him. He wouldn't break,
would not give in to pain and let himself be whipped by anything or anyone.
He stood slowly, wincing and grunting, and examined the wound on his throat by
touch.
The bleeding had stopped, but his shirtfront was caked and sticky with blood.
Though his throat hurt, he realized it wasn't much more than superficial, more
unsightly than critical.
The swelling on the back of his head was more worrisome.
Mildred would diagnose it as a closed-skull injury, and he knew from his years
on
Trader's war wags that head traumas were tricky. He could have sustained a
skull fracture and be suffering from a cranial leakage of blood for all he
knew.
Grim determination steeled his mind. He was going back to his friends in the
forest city and would return with them to rescue Ryan or recover his body. His
brains could start to ooze from his ears, but he was going back.
It was difficult to move at first, but as his stiff body warmed and loosened,
the pain receded. He crept along the crest of the ridge, then down into the
dell. He came across a little family of deer feeding there. For a minute he
stood in the foliage and watched them, graceful, lovely things with their
moist, black noses and great, innocent eyes: a proud buck, two does and a
small, spotted fawn.
J.B. walked toward them. The deer lifted their heads and froze. The buck took
a step forward, lowering its antlered head in a warning. Then it snorted at
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the unfamiliar man-
scent and the pungent tang of blood. As one, they whirled fleetly and bounded
away.
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Dlands 37- Demons of Eden
When he reached the outermost edge of the forest, he paused, scanning the open
plains before him. The stars burned overhead like millions of tiny
match-heads, but he saw nothing but grass. He started forward, walking in a
long-legged, ground-eating stride.
J.B. didn't walk far before he wished he had a pair of moccasins. He'd
probably end up cutting his combat boots off his swollen feet. The temperature
had dropped, not enough to be dangerous, just enough to make him extremely
uncomfortable. His breath plumed out in front of him with every exhalation.
He remembered a conversation he'd had with Hunaker, a fellow gunner on War Wag
One.
They had been hiding from a horde of stickies in a bug-infested swamp, and she
had told him, "When the times get tough, just concentrate on a time that was
worse."
"Does it help?" J.B. had asked.
The green-haired woman had shrugged. "Nah. Generally the other time seems like
a quilting bee in comparison."
Hunaker was dead, chilled by crazy old Quint and his crazier wife. J.B.
increased his pace, not wanting to think about her or any of Trader's old
crew. A gust of wind slapped at him, setting off a spasm of shivering and
numbing his ears. He pulled up his long coat over the top and sides of his
head, cursing whoever had stolen his hat.
The terrain dropped into a narrow declivity, which sheltered him from the
chill wind for a little while. He was tempted to remain there, but he forced
himself to keep moving. He could only become more tired, so it was best to
tramp on before he dropped in his tracks from exhaustion. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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