Devil Riders

“Nothing like fire,” Jak said, then grimly added, “Except stickies.”

“Then mebbe we can get one of these wags working and leave,” J.B. added. “The farther we get from this hellhole, the better!”

“I’ll find some rope,” Dean said, running to the workbench on the far wall.

“Check the Hummers,” Ryan suggested. “They always carry spare tackle.”

“On it!”

“I’ll find more bottles for Molotovs,” Krysty said. “Maybe there’s some of those foam coffee cups in the kitchen.”

“Jak, go with her,” Ryan ordered brusquely. “Nobody goes anywhere alone until we are far from these tripcursed things!”

The albino teenager grunted in agreement and joined the woman at the stairs to disappear into the bowels of the redoubt.

Meanwhile, the remaining companions started for the closet to assist in clearing out the fuel cans. Four of the containers were already in a line on the garage floor, and as Doc turned back for another load, he spit a curse in Latin and pulled out his LeMat to shoot from the hip. Something screamed like a child inside the closet and blood sprayed onto the floor.

“There’s another crack!” Doc shouted, backing away from the room of volatile fuel. He was holding the trigger down on his single-action weapon, a raised palm hovering above the hammer to fan the black-powder cannon into action, but he withheld shooting. The bugs were crawling over the cans of fuel! One ricochet and that entire area of the redoubt could be engulfed in a firestorm of burning fuel.

As a millipede dropped off the last row of cans and started out of the supply closet, Doc shot it twice at both ends, blowing off its pinchers. Already moving, Ryan and J.B. charged forward to hit the door with their full weight. It slammed shut, cutting the insect in two. Pumping blood, the mutie wailed in agony and Doc soundly kicked it away, the dying bug hitting the wall with a splat and leaving a gruesome stain.

“That’s where the first crack leads to,” Mildred cursed, her ZKR trained on the door. “The damn fuel storage closet!”

“Droid couldn’t stop them there without chancing the whole damn base would blow,” J.B. added. “And neither can we!”

“How many bugs you think there are?” Dean demanded, quickly thumbing fresh rounds into the spent clip of the Browning. He shoved it into a pocket and started on another. Not too many loose rounds were left, so he’d have to make every shot count.

Even as the door shuddered from an impact on the other side, Ryan caught saw a flurry of motion in the crack.

“Too many!” Ryan snarled, pumping lead into the darkness. The muzzle-flash of the weapon lit the crevice in a wild strobe just enough to show a swarm of millipedes crawling along the sides and top of the opening past the makeshift barricade.

“Back to the mat-trans!” Ryan ordered, firing the Steyr. There was a gush of blood and a childlike scream, but another mutie crawled over the twitching corpse to reach the edge of the crack and snap at the companions.

Riding the Uzi in short controlled bursts, J.B. laid down some suppressive fire with his blaster, while the others retreated for the stairs. From there they covered the man until he joined them.

“What the hell is going on?” Krysty demanded from the next level below, her arms loaded with foam coffee cups.

“We’re leaving!” Mildred grunted, leaning against the stairwell door to try to keep it closed. “Anybody know a way to lock this thing in place?”

Whistling sharply, Jak tossed a knife upward and Ryan caught it by the handle, then rammed the thick blade under the doorjamb. Hesitantly, the others released the door and it held, but clearly not for long.

Nobody needed any encouragement to start racing down the stairs. As they reached the middle level, there was a slam from above and a rustling sound that grew in volume. The companions charged through the flickering control room. Jak tried to stab another knife under the jamb, but it wouldn’t hold. Abandoning the effort, the group moved into the antechamber, closed the vanadium-steel door and locked it tight.

“Safe at last,” Doc exhaled in relief, mopping his brow of a handkerchief.

Seconds later, there was a thump against the metal, followed by a scratching noise as something raked across the dense material.

“Bugs are fast,” J.B. said, removing his glasses and tucking them into a shirt pocket.

“Mildred, any more jump juice?” Ryan asked, heading across the chamber.

“Not a drop,” she said, shaking the empty canteen.

“Too bad for us, then. Everybody in!” Ryan ordered, striding to the chamber.

As the companions crowded into the unit, the heavy thumping increased against the steel portal to the chamber, then a soft electronic mist started to gather at the ceiling and floor. A tingle filled their bones, but even as the companions felt themselves drop through the floor into the infinity of the subelectronic void they noticed a change, a subtle shifting from the usual procedure, and they instantly knew that something was terribly wrong.

Chapter Four

“We’ll camp here,” Cranston shouted over the engines, and eased the big Harley off the dried riverbed and over a bumpy culvert to head toward a gigantic rock mesa.

The jagged column of stone rose from the sunbaked red ground to dominate the countryside for miles. Several tiny creatures with wings circled the top of the mesa, but the details and even their cries were lost in the distance. The sheer sides of the mesa were vertical walls of grayish rock, impossible to climb. No plants grew from the sides of the mesa, not even vines of scrub brush. It was as bare as a dead man’s bones.

Riding along the swells of ground, the coldhearts circled around the mesa until reaching the shadows of the eastern face. Now masked by the darkness of the setting sun, they drove into a deep arroyo that cut into the mesa like a wild lightning bolt, a zigzagging path of culverts, dead ends, caves and cutoffs. Slowing to a crawl, the bikes went single file, endlessly making turns until they were deep within the stony maze. Flexing his hands to keep a grip on the handlebars, Denver Joe had to appreciate the location. Anybody not knowing the correct path would soon become lost and easy prey for any snipers hidden in the rocky face soaring high above the pebble-strewn floor of the canyon.

Open space suddenly exploded around them as the Devils rolled into a box canyon. The ground here was smooth and flat. Several huts lined the far side of the canyon, with sandbag nests on top for guards. There was a shaded corral for the bikes, a pit edged with barbed wire for the slaves and a still surrounded by rusty barrels.

Riding through the middle of the canyon, the gang passed a low stone pillar with a rusty I-beam laying across the top. The beam was dripping with chains, while the pillar was decorated with grinning human skulls, the stone darkly stained. A shiver took Denver Joe as he spotted a few black scorpions crawling about picking at the sun-dried bits of blood and flesh still attached to the old bones. So that was the Learning Tree the others had been talking about on the ride here, a grisly monument where slaves were whipped, bikers beaten for disobedience and enemies slowly tortured until they begged for death. It was where outlanders and muties learned the wisdom of pain.

Entering the shadows again on the western side, it felt good just to be out of the direct rays of the sun, but Denver Joe felt there was a definite coolness in the air, and as he parked his bike near a hut, he saw a tiny waterfall splashing out of the side of the mesa into a small pool. There were green plants growing alongside, some corn and marijuana, the broad splayed leaves unmistakable.

“Hell of a find,” Denver Joe stated, climbing stiffly off the motorcycle. “This our ville?”

“One of ’em.” Krury laughed, kicking a leg over the bike to stand. “We never stay in one spot very long, and nobody can find ya. Wheels mean freedom, man.”

“Loads my blaster,” Denver Joe said in agreement, trying not to groan aloud. He felt sore in every muscle, his back a knotted lump of cramps. The predark paved roads in the area were in poor shape with potholes everywhere, and the drive across open ground was even worse. The nukescaping was pretty bad here, although the others said it was even worse to the south, toward the Texas Badlands. Been a hell of a rough trip.

Then the man felt like a feeb for thinking that, as he glanced at the bedraggled slaves, heaving for breath, their bound hands held in front of them as if they were still running to keep up with the bikers. Most had bleeding feet, and two of the older folks had fallen and been dragged to their deaths before the Devils stopped to gather the corpses. Only the pregnant girl had been allowed to ride on a Harley. But then, if she gave birth to a healthy norm baby, she would be worth more in ammo and fuel than a hundred slaves. More than one baron would pay big jack for a healthy child.

After the slaves had been shoved into the pit for safekeeping and the bikes given some maintenance, it was time to dress the corpses. As the newbie of the group, Denver had to assist. Attaching chains around the ankles of the dead people, the bikers hauled them into the air from the crossbar of the Learning Tree and cut away what remained of their clothing. Then it was purely a matter of skinning and scraping the bodies, much the same as butchering a fat hog. When the last of the organs had been removed, the Devils built a smoldering fire under the gutted figures and let them dangle in the thick smoke to cure.

Darkness came with sunset, and a bonfire was built of rubbish and some wood taken from ruins along the dried river. Dinner was canned beans and some freshly killed dog. Good food, but Denver Joe had to force down his share to not appear weak from the horrid butchery. He had washed his hands four times in the runoff of the little pool, but could still detect the coppery reek of human blood and entrails.

As several of the bikers lit up joints and passed around a bottle of triple-brewed shine, Denver claimed he was still too tired from the earlier knife fight to join in the gang rape of the female prisoners. The man he replaced on watch was delighted to swap, and Denver Joe was given a Winchester longblaster to watch the opening of the arroyo, more for snakes and wolves than any possible human invaders.

Putting the Learning Tree at his back, he fed wood chips into the campfire and tried not to listen to the screams from the slave pits. Then when he was fairly sure nobody was watching, the old man reached into his boot and removed a flat plastic box. The casing had been slightly cracked from the fight at the creek, but there didn’t appear to be any water damage. Unfortunately, he didn’t know of any way to test the damn thing. The transmitter either worked, or it didn’t. As surreptitiously as possible, he laid the predark device near the campfire and watched as it hopefully was accumulating electrical energy from the heat of the campfire. Something about a thermocouple, but exactly what the old tech talk meant was far beyond him.

As the silver crescent of the moon rose over the mesa walls and filled the canyon with silver light, Denver Joe added a branch to the campfire and knocked the device into the crackling flames. The transmitter caught fire and burned very quickly from the oily rags stuffed inside to protect it from moisture, and soon there wasn’t a trace remaining that it had existed. Soon his replacement guard sauntered over, naked except for his boots and blaster, smoking a handrolled marijuana stogie. Denver Joe listened to the biker boast about the sex in the pit for a while, then passed over the Winchester and stumbled off to bed for some much needed sleep.

Masked by the deep shadows of the sandbag nest on top of the largest hut, Cranston smoked a cig laced with jolt and wondered what in hell the newbie had been doing at the campfire. Unfortunately, the Learning Tree had been in the way and the chief biker never got a clear view. Mebbe he was just trying not to be sick in front of the others. Made sense. Lots of men vomited their guts out cleaning a deader for the first time. But the secretive actions made him mighty uneasy, and Cranston spent a long night thinking hard on the matter.

AS THE ELECTRONIC FOG faded from the mat-trans, Ryan cursed in recognition at the cream-colored walls with their golden lattice pattern. They were in the exact same redoubt!

Glancing about, Jak frowned. “Went nowhere!”

“Damn LD button must have shorted, or something,” J.B. growled, sliding on his glasses and peering at the control panel. There was no obvious damage to the array of buttons, but who could really tell with the predark machinery?

Shifting the Steyr rifle on his shoulder to a more comfortable position, Ryan rubbed his good eye, debating the possibility of trying one more time to jump out of the infested redoubt. But his gut feeling was that the machine was broken, and that they had been riding luck from the first moment they arrived.