Baptism Of Rage

But that hadn’t been the worst of it. Poor Doc Tanner had physically aged, like a time-lapse film, and found himself a man in his thirties trapped in the body of one much, much older. It had been a cruel fate, and had almost unhinged Doc’s mind. For a while, during their early companionship, J.B. had known the old man to snap into visions and memories, convinced he was back home with his wife and children.

“Jump nightmares aren’t easy on anyone,” J.B. pointed out. “Gotta shake it off, Doc.”

Doc sighed his agreement. A part of him had taken perverse joy in seeing his dear Emily again, and he regretted letting the dream fade, however horrific its conclusion had been.

As the companions trudged along the cracked highway, they heard a rumbling in the distance. Fifteen minutes later, a posse of wags, four in all, trundled past them. They were led by two old truck rigs belching putrid black smoke from their upright exhaust pipes. Behind the rigs, a horse-drawn wag bumped over the cracked road, a woman and baby visible inside the rotten shell of the four-wheel drive that the horses pulled, the animals themselves looking tired and hungry, bony shoulder blades close to the surface of their matted coats. Finally, a tractor that had been converted to carry passengers in a covered section stretching behind it puttered along. The companions stood to one side and watched as the convoy made its slow progress along the bumpy road.

“Guess we’re on Main Street,” J.B. muttered, casting a significant look at Ryan before turning his attention back to the passing wags.

Like most people in the Deathlands, the companions were wary of strangers. Life was a series of rules of survival, primary among them was the simple edict of “chill or be chilled.” Communities, little baronies called villes, may work together for the purposes of farming and social cohesion, but outlanders were invariably treated with contempt. Chilling a man for the boots he wore wasn’t unheard-of, even if those boots didn’t fit and leaked water like a sieve. In the Deathlands, having was better than not having, pure and simple.

“I wonder where they are going?” Doc said amiably, as the wags continued down the broken tarmac.

“Same place we’re going, most likely,” J.B. replied. “As far down the road as they can until they either find something worth stopping for or die of exhaustion.”

The old man snorted with amusement. In that single sentence, J.B. had summed up the motivation that kept the restless companions themselves moving ever onward, mat-trans by mat-trans.

RYAN AND HIS GROUP continued walking along the broken road for another twenty minutes until, as dusk fell and the putrid drizzle continued its relentless assault on the travelers, they spotted a scattering of ramshackle buildings arranged on either side of the blistered blacktop. The wags were just pulling over, placing themselves beside similar parked vehicles, and Ryan could see that they were stopping off in the dirt beside a cluster of three large wooden buildings.

Ryan held his hand up to bring his companions to a halt, and Krysty called to Jak to wait. Then Ryan pulled the scoped SSG-70 Steyr rifle from his back. The one-eyed man rested the butt of the weapon against his shoulder and peered into the powerful magnification lens of the scope.

“Couple of sec men,” he said as he studied the clutch of buildings ahead, spotting two well-armed toughs patrolling the area as the wag riders disembarked. Then he spotted another sec man through the scope, and yet another a moment later, both of them brandishing assault rifles with holstered blasters at their hips. “Make that three,” Ryan continued in an emotionless voice. “No, four. Sentry post half-buried across to the right of the road, pillbox design. Can see a light there, someone’s inside.”

“Anything else?” J.B. prompted as Ryan slowly scanned the horizon through the scope.

After a moment, Ryan shifted the rifle from its resting place against his shoulder. “Looks friendly,” he announced, relief on his scarred face.

Even as he said it, the sound of blasterfire tore across the fields, cutting through the stillness.

Chapter Two

Ryan peered into the scope again to examine the little settlement. Beside him, J.B. had produced a pair of minibinocs from inside his voluminous coat, while Jak simply narrowed his eyes, using his hand to shade them from the dwindling sunlight of dusk. Behind them, Doc, Krysty and Mildred became alert, checking their weapons in readiness.

Locating the flashes of blasterfire through the magnifying scope, Ryan saw several members of the wag train blasting shots at something he couldn’t immediately recognize. Whatever it was, it was the color of shadow and it moved liquid fast and low to the ground as the drizzling rain continued lashing at the soil. As Ryan tracked the dark mass, parts of it broke away, and he realized it was a pack of dogs, or maybe wolves. One of the creatures bolted across the darkening field and leaped into the frightened crowd emerging from the convoy. It moved as a blur across the gun’s magnifying lens, and Ryan felt his breath catch as the creature grappled with an elderly man, its powerful forelegs driving its prey to the ground. The hound shook its victim by the arm as he tumbled to the mud, ripping at the man’s forearm amid a gush of blood.

Without a moment’s thought, Ryan instantly steadied his breathing, calmed his heart rate and gently squeezed the trigger on the Steyr rifle. A bullet sped from the rifle’s muzzle with a loud report, zipping through the air and driving into the creature’s head where it reared in the center of Ryan’s crosshairs. Ryan watched the dark-furred beast topple with the impact of his bullet and roll across the slick ground, away from its elderly victim. Then Ryan felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he saw the creature scramble around on the ground for a moment before, remarkably, pulling itself up, a bloody hole pulsing at the right-hand side of its head. The crazy mutie dog was still alive, shaking off the effect of the bullet’s impact!

J.B. watched through his binoculars as he stood by Ryan’s shoulder, and the one-eyed man heard his friend’s incredulous mutter of “Dark night” as the canine stood. A few paces ahead of Ryan, Jak broke from the group, sprinting into the field in the direction of the settlement.

The wolf’s long head turned and, for a moment, the dark-furred creature seemed to be peering down the scope of the rifle, its feral, yellow-eyed glare boring directly into Ryan’s right eye as its black lips pulled back from blood-washed teeth.

Ryan didn’t flinch. Settling himself into a stable, kneeling position on the water-slicked blacktop, he squeezed the trigger again, feeling the Steyr drum against his shoulder as it blasted another bullet at the beast. The slug whipped through the air just above the ground until it met with the monster, directly between its rage-filled eyes. Blood erupted from the creature’s face in a red mist, mixing immediately with the drizzling rain.

Ryan didn’t stay to try a third shot. He rolled the rifle from his shoulder and turned to instruct his companions. “Some kind of mutie dogs, mebbe wolves,” he grunted, getting up and leading the way across the broken highway at a fast trot. The others followed, all except Jak, who had already disappeared into the fields, taking it upon himself to get closer to the action in his own way.

Taking deep breaths as he jogged at Ryan’s side, J.B. pulled his M-4000 scattergun from beneath his coat. “Those bastards,” he growled, “are gonna take a little something extra.”

“Any ideas?” Ryan asked.

The Armorer turned to Ryan, loading the scattergun one-handed as they ran along the slippery, broken tarmac toward the settlement. “Keep your eye open,” he instructed with a humorless grin.

AS SOON AS THE BLASTERSHOTS rang out, Jak’s senses went to high alert. His keen mind was already considering options by the time Ryan blasted his first shot from the Steyr, and he had disappeared among the avenues of high wheat crop before Ryan had pumped his second shot into the monstrous creature.

Jak was closer now, his Colt Python clenched in his bone-white hand, as he weaved through the anemic-looking rows of wheat, making his way toward the shacks. The spindly wheat drooped, weighed down by the raindrops that had settled upon it.

It looked like a pack of wolves—at least a dozen, heavy creatures with muscular legs and lean, hungry bodies. Their fur was fecal brown with black streaks, which made them hard to keep track of in the ebbing daylight.

Even as Jak watched, another of the monstrous creatures sprang away from the pack, rushing at a dark-haired woman holding a baby in her arms. The woman jogged backward as the creature howled as it raced at her, arching its back menacingly. Then it leaped, and Jak watched—emotionless—as its jaws clamped around the woman’s neck, rending a hunk of flesh from just below her throat in a dark stain of red. Then it shook its head, tossing her bleeding body aside, blood splashed across its sharp, daggerlike teeth. The woman flopped in a heap on the ground, letting go of her child as she collapsed, mud splattering all around her.

Sec men were scrambling about, trying to frighten away the beasts by firing into the air and firing at the near-impervious monsters themselves, but no one had time—or inclination—to assist in the woman’s plight.

She wasn’t dead yet however, that was what Jak knew. She wasn’t dead, nor was the baby. So Jak ran, head down, arms pumping at his sides, feet striking the rain-soaked soil, rushing to get into a position where he might help her.

Emerging from the field, Jak scanned the scene ahead. The woman was lying still, just a few feet from the monstrous wolf as its jaws widened around the bundled baby that lay wailing on the ground, its pink blanket splattered with mud. The other people from the caravan and three sec men of the ville were running about, desperately fending off the rest of the pack, ducking behind the sheltering walls of the nearby buildings. Jak spotted the bloody remains of another sec man beside the pillbox sentry post, two of the gigantic wolves feasting on his entrails as he kicked and screamed.

Sprinting through the field, Jak turned his attention back to the woman with the baby. He raised the heavy revolver in his hand, sighting down the length of his arm and pulling the trigger as he ran. There was a boom, a flash and the smell of cordite hung in the air as his first shot blasted into the wolf’s flank. Staggered, the foul creature turned its long-muzzled head to face Jak, the baby still clamped, drooping from its jaws.

Jak stopped, his boot heels sliding momentarily in the wet soil, and he reeled off three more shots at the wolf as it began to race toward him, its feet striking the earth in a drumming tarantella, its pace increasing with every step. The first .357 Magnum bullet merely clipped the monster’s ear, but the second and third found their target, drilling into the beast’s right eye, exploding the eyeball and powering onward into its brainpan.

The dark-furred monstrosity staggered a moment, its legs giving way under it like a ville drunk on free hooch night, before opening its jaws and dropping the child to the ground with a thump. The child rolled over and over, howling in shock, and the beast followed, its body sagging into a clump at Jak’s feet. The albino teen warily watched the creature’s legs spasm, kicking out in awful jerking movements as its dying form lay in the soaking, muddy earth.

Then he leaned close, placing the muzzle of the Colt flush against the side of the monster’s head, and pulled the trigger once more. After that, the hulking thing stopped twitching.

Leaning down, Jak picked up the baby. The pink blanket that it was wrapped in was stained with mud and disheveled from the creature’s attack, but the child seemed intact, its eyes screwing up as it wailed. Jak rocked the baby back and forth as he made his way toward the wounded woman who was lying in the mud.

WITH A FINAL BURST of speed, Ryan raced ahead of his companions, the scoped Steyr rifle slapping against his back where he’d slung it, his 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 blaster now clenched in his right fist. The Armorer raced to keep up with his longtime friend, sweeping the area with the Smith & Wesson scattergun as the pack of wolves lunged at the locals with the savagery of a raging river bursting its banks. As soon as the pair reached the half-buried pillbox, their weapons spit fire, blasting shot after shot into the crowd of mutie hounds. The dismembered sec man lay there, an explosion of blood where his torso had once been.

A little way back, the remaining companions took up static positions on the cracked blacktop. Doc wielded his deadly LeMat, an ancient percussion pistol that had been adapted to include an additional shotgun barrel capable of unleashing a single, devastating .63-caliber shot. To either side of the white-haired man, Krysty and Mildred were scanning the fields along the sights of their own handguns. Krysty favored a small revolver, a .38 Smith & Wesson Model 640, a stubby gun with plenty of stopping power. Across from her, Mildred had her double-action ZKR 551 targeting revolver in her hand.

Mildred’s heart was pounding, and she steadied her grip by placing her free hand tightly beneath the wrist of her right hand. In her other life, a hundred years before, Mildred had been an Olympic free-shooting silver medalist, and she valued the need for a still mind and a steady aim when facing a target, even one as savage and unpredictable as the oversize wolves.

There was a risk that more of the pack were hidden in the crops surrounding them, and the two women were meticulous as they eyeballed the fields in the ebbing light.

“Incoming!” Doc shouted suddenly as four of the muscular beasts broke from the pack at the shacks and scampered across the rain-slickened blacktop toward them, their large paws slapping against the cracked tarmac.

Krysty and Mildred swung around, aiming their blasters at the oncoming creatures as Doc unleashed that cacophonous .63-caliber wad of shot. The result was dazzling in the twilight, a bright explosion of light and fury. Twenty feet ahead, the lead wolf was eviscerated, exploding in a burst of guts and flesh, its head crumbling to the ground as two uneven hunks of flesh and bone.

The other wolves slowed their pace for a moment, a tremulous whine coming from one of them, before racing once more toward Doc and the women. Mildred had their height now, and she snapped off a steady stream of bullets into the left-most member of the group, almost casually, such was her unhurried manner. To Doc’s right, Krysty held her Smith & Wesson tightly, her finger softly stroking the silver trigger as she waited for the shot. In an instant, she squeezed the trigger, pumping it repeatedly and launching 9 mm bullet after 9 mm bullet at the wolf to the right of the group.

Both wolves dropped simultaneously, sinking to the ground as the streams of bullets snagged them. They were still alive, their bodies thrashing, but chunks of their heads and bodies were missing now, bloodied strips of bone visible in the one to the left where Mildred’s attack had struck at the same point repeatedly.

The mutie in the center continued its charge, its head down, jaws slavering as it powered toward Doc and the companions, ignoring the harsh fate of its brethren. Its shotgun capacity exhausted, the LeMat in Doc’s hand spit fire from its standard barrel, driving a shot into the creature as it sprang off the ground toward him. At the last possible instant, Doc simultaneously ducked and sidestepped, letting the heavy form of the wolf sail over his shoulder, so close that he could smell the foul stench of the flesh that had been caught between its blood-soaked teeth.

The beast landed heavily behind Doc and the companions, its feet hitting the slick tarmac with a thud before it scampered around to face the three friends once more, kicking up rainwater as it turned. Its dark lips peeled back and it loosed a low, angry snarl as it glared at the white-haired old man.

Krysty and Mildred began blasting shots at the monster, but it was already moving, its padded feet slapping loudly against the cracked and broken blacktop of the road.

“Dammit, it’s too fast,” Mildred spat. “I can’t get a bead…”

To Doc’s other side, Krysty muttered something in agreement, but he ignored both women and timed the creature’s movements in his head. All he could do was keep out of the monster’s way. The hulking mutie barreled at him, howling as it ran, and Doc spun on the heel of his boot, pulling the sweeping tails of his dark blue frock coat to one side like a matador taunting a charging bull.

“By the Three Kennedys!” Doc cried as the monstrous hound passed him, its meaty shoulder knocking into his leg as he struggled to step out of its way. It had been a glancing blow, barely a tap, but the speed and power of the wolf was such that it had crashed against Doc’s leg with the impact of a jackhammer. Even as he cried out, the old man felt his balance waver and suddenly he went tumbling to the ground.

He looked up as he struggled to recover, and saw that the wolf was running in a tight circle, doubling back to lunge at him again with those fierce, snapping jaws. Mildred was trying to shoot the monster, but most of her shots were going wide because the hellish hound moved so fast. As well, those shots that did hit seemed to leave no impression on the enraged beast whatsoever. Still struggling on the ground, Doc saw that the nightmarish creature was almost upon him.

But the dark-furred beast never reached the old man’s fallen form. A thin, pale hand lunged out and grabbed the wolf by the ankle of its hind leg. The beast yelped in surprise as it was pulled back, its leap abruptly curtailed.

Everything was moving so fast that Doc had to recover his thoughts before he could process what it was he saw. Krysty had the hulking wolf by the ankle of its right hind leg and, as it snapped its jaws at her, her other hand whipped out and slapped it across its snout. Even with the sound of drizzle washing against the road, Doc heard the sharp noise of cracking bone when Krysty’s hand hit, and the monstrous wolf whined. Its jaw was misaligned now, Doc saw, and wouldn’t close properly on its hinge. The wolf’s putrescent yellow eyes were wide with terror.

As Doc and Mildred watched, Krysty swung the dark-furred form down on the ground, letting go of its ankle as its spine cracked against the hard tarmac. The beast shuddered on the ground for a moment, struggling to stand. Krysty swung her leg back and punted the hound in the face with the pointed toe of her silver-capped boot. Doc felt his breath catch in his throat as the creature’s face—remarkably—caved in with the tremendous force behind that kick.

And then Krysty took two wavering steps before sinking to her knees before the bloody carcass of the mutie wolf. She had used the power of Gaia, the Earth Mother, Doc knew, a remarkable spring of power that came from the earth itself, infusing Krysty with incredible, superhuman strength for a very short period of time. The Gaia power was brief, a firework burst of energy, and, as its glow faded, it left Krysty as weak as a kitten.

Mildred was already crouching beside Krysty, concerned, checking that the remarkable redhead was all right. Beside them, the huge wolf lay still, its once proud snout now a concave mess of shattered bone.

“Thank you kindly, my dear Krysty,” Doc managed to say as he struggled back to his feet and retrieved his lion’s-head cane from the ground.

THE SCATTERGUN BOOMED as J.B. launched another blast at the wolf pack that had rounded on the little clutch of buildings. The pack was wary now, having lost several of its brethren to these lethal newcomers. A little way behind J.B., Ryan skipped backward, his SIG-Sauer blaster held before him, nearing the struggling group that had emerged from the caravan of mismatched wags.

“Everyone okay?” Ryan asked in his authoritative voice, peering over his shoulder for a snap second before turning back to the circling mutie hounds.

“We have three wounded,” someone—a young man’s voice—explained from over Ryan’s shoulder.

Jak’s familiar voice called from behind Ryan then, providing a little more information in his strangely abrupt manner of speech. “Baby and Ma, not look good.”

“Just get everyone inside, Jak,” Ryan commanded, not taking his eyes off the feral creatures before him. “They’ll be safe there.”

As he spoke, one of the wolves made a break for it, lurching forward on its wide paws, picking up speed as it rushed at the retreating group of humans. J.B. leaned over his M-4000, firing three thunderous shots at the monstrosity while Ryan unleashed a flurry of bullets at its feet, as though daring it to come closer.

The wolf turned, scampering back to the pack, its tail low. Watching the creature scramble away, a tight smile on his lips, J.B. held his ground a moment before taking a single pace forward and blasting another shot from the shotgun. The blast ripped into the creature’s back, knocking it over itself as the explosion rocked its hind legs. It struggled a moment, then got back on its feet and continued to run away, limping a little as it disappeared among the soaked shafts of wheat. The wolves around it watched, their heads low, snarling between clenched teeth before finally turning tail and running.

J.B. and Ryan blasted off several more rounds, accompanied by Jak, who now stood at Ryan’s side. They watched as the creatures weaved through the high fields of wheat and disappeared from sight.

“Come back, reckon?” Jak asked, his heavy revolver still trained on the field where the monsters had run.

“Bastard sure of it,” Ryan growled. “We should find some cover of our own.”

Ryan turned to peer around them, giving the little group of shacks the once-over before turning his gaze down the road to where his other companions were hurrying to join them. Doc had loaned his ebony walking cane to Krysty, who was now using it to aid her progress on weakened legs. Mildred brought up the rear of the group, her ZKR 551 target pistol poised in a straight-armed grip.

“Krysty?” Ryan asked, jogging over to be at her side. “What happened?”

Krysty looked up at him between sweat-and-rain-dampened strands of her red hair, and a wonderfully innocent smile crossed her face. “Just a little bump and grind, lover, nothing to get jealous over,” she assured him with good humor, but her voice sounded weak.

Ryan shot the others a meaningful look and Doc took that as his cue.

“She called on Gaia,” Doc said. “Saved this very grateful man’s life in so doing.”

Ryan nodded. He knew the Gaia power affected his most precious companion. He knew, too, that she would come back around again, back to full health in a little while. It just took time, and right now, standing out here waiting for another mutie wolf attack was about the least smart way to spend it. “Let’s everyone get inside,” he instructed, putting his arm around Krysty’s waist to help her across the road to the nearest wooden building.

A wooden fence stood waist-high with a gate that caught on a simple latch, the kind used to stop farm animals getting out or wildlife—like mutie wolves—getting in. Beyond that, a two-story shack waited, and piano music drifted from inside.

A bewildered goat was tethered outside the rotting wooden shack, soaked through and bleating miserably in the downpour. The words Traid n Post had been carved into a sign beside the building’s front door with a smaller sign below that read Good Eaten. Music drifted from inside as someone pounded at the keys of a badly tuned piano.

The goat bleated as the six travelers made their way past it to go inside, and Jak stopped to marvel at the sorry-looking creature. He felt an affinity for the animal as it looked up at him hopefully, its satanic red eyes matching Jak’s own, white fur and tuft of beard in imitation of Jak’s colorless skin and pure white stubble. The goat rested on a square of rough plywood, with two wheels on an axle running beneath it. Its hind legs had been removed high on the shoulder, not even the hint of a stump remaining, and Jak could see the jagged black thread lining the animal’s white fur where the amputations had been sewn closed. As Jak looked at the beast, its fur matted with the awful drizzle that was still lancing at the ground with needle-thin precision, they heard a bleating and two more goats, a nanny and her kid, came prancing around the corner. Each of them wore a collar with a short length of rope tying one to the other, preventing them from moving comfortably without butting into each other. All three sorry creatures looked hungry.