Chapter Thirteen

Ryan woke several times during the slow, sweating eternity of night. He was aware that his sleep was painfully shallow, plagued with tedious anxiety dreams. He found himself standing beside one of the ancient predark interstates, somewhere in the flatlands of Missouri or Kansas.
The wheat fields had been cropped short, leaving only charred stubble stretching from north to south, from east to west. It was featureless land beneath a sky of unbroken gray with no hint of sunlight.
Ryan was waiting for something. He suspected that it was a war wag that was running hours late. It had been due to pick him up sometime in the previous day or so, but it had failed to arrive. And there was still no sign of it.
In the endless, turgid dream, Ryan had paced back and forth, his feet dragging through soft gray dust. Every now and again he would stop and look around the arid landscape, shading both his good eyes with his right hand, looking for the war wag.
Each time he woke up, Ryan had a strange moment of total disorientation, wondering where be was and what was wrong. And why it was so totally black.
Then he'd remember and turn over, rubbing at his sore right eye, wincing at how tender it felt. The memory of the dull dream would slowly ease back to him, and he'd turn over again, shaking his head.
But each time he fell asleep again, Ryan found himself back in the same place, where the interstate was crossed by a country road, still waiting for the wag that was going to come along and take him away.


TO HIS DISMAY, Ryan found the blindness seemed to have snatched away his sense of time. Normally he would wake up and know, instinctively how much of the night had passed and how much still remained.
Now that was gone.
He lay still, aware that his pulse was faster and more shallow than usual, indicating the stress he was going through. He could hear Krysty sleeping calmly at his side, her breathing slow, steady and regular.
For a moment Ryan almost woke her up, envious of her peace. He wanted a piss, so that could've been a good enough excuse to get her to help him.
But he stayed still and silent, eye closed, trying to use the meditation tricks that Krysty had taught him to ease away the worst of the tension.
Sleep came again.
This time Ryan had a road map in his hands, showing the interstate and the maze of smaller highways that danced around it. The colors were exceptionally bright, making him squint against the dazzle. The big map didn't have a heading to show which state it was, nor were there any names printed of counties or villes.
As Ryan stared down, the colored lines began to move. Slowly at first, like a sun-warmed cottonmouth, then faster, the dark green winding around some of the thin blue highways and choking them out of existence. It was like watching a kaleidoscopic maze of shifting patterns.
Ryan crumpled it angrily into a ball of crushed paper and dropped it in the dirt by his combat boots. But it unfolded itself, crackling noisily, lying flat on the ground before taking to the air like a multihued magical carpet, soaring high over his head on its own mystery tour.
"You can't look back, son. Not when you're moving on." The voice belonged to Ryan's father, Baron Titus of Front Royal ville, one of the most powerful men in all Deathlands.
But there was nobody there, just a scarecrow standing foursquare in the center of the north forty. It was around 150 paces away from the crossroads.
Ryan looked toward it, hunching his shoulders against a cold blue norther that had come sweeping in over the prairie. The voice had come from the direction of the scarecrow.
He began to walk toward the crucified figure, hearing the charred stubble crunching under his boots, filling the air with the sour smell of burning.
A lone crow had been circling for some minutes, gradually swinging lower. It swooped past Ryan's face, cawing, close enough for the rancid wing feathers to brush against his face. It perched on the shoulder of the scarecrow, pecking at some of the loose yellow straw that was leaking from the junction of bead and body.
Ryan stood less than twenty paces from the scarecrow. It wore black rubber boots and a suit in a light brown check. The white shirt had a ruffled lace front, and the tie was maroon silk. A large black hat with a drooped brim, like a circuit preacher's, concealed the face.
The wind tugged at the clothes, making them flap on the wooden skeleton.
"Better to have died yesterday than to live tomorrow," Baron Titus's voice said again.
Suddenly Ryan didn't want to go up and look to see the face beneath the hat.
Over the years Ryan had watched the tattered loops of old vids and carefully read the crumbled shards of predark comics. And he had come across horror stories.
Even though he knew that he was dreaming, it didn't make the cold fear any easier to bear.
The face of the scarecrow might be his father's, or one of his brothers' or Krysty's.
Perhaps it might even be his own face. That would be the ultimate terror.
The crow sat perkily on the broom-handle shoulders of the tatterdemalion figure, head on one side, yellow beak ajar, bright eyes locked to Ryan's face.
"Come on then, pretty boy. See the show, my pretty boy. Who's the pretty boy?" The crow sounded hideously like a trained parrot or cockatoo.
Ryan was only a yard from the scarecrow, the shadow of the large hat still falling over its visage. The wind was freshening, and it suddenly gusted and blew the hat off.
The face wasn't anyone particular. It was a pumpkin, with a toothy smile neatly carved out and two small holes gouged for the nostrils, as well as two larger sockets to hold the succulent purple grapes that had been pushed in to represent the eyes. Strands of long straw had been stapled to the top of the round orange skull.
The crow hadn't moved, watching the approaching man through its perky, polished eyes.
As Ryan stared at the hewn face, the bird hopped on top of the head and lowered its beak, neatly plucking out both the grapes, leaving dark-rimmed sockets, raw and naked, brimming with purple juice that trickled across the orange cheeks like fresh blinding blood.
The bird looked at Ryan. "Blind as a bat," it squawked. "Though bats see fine at night. Fine at night. I see you, you don't see me. Si , si , amigo. I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream." It gave a braying laugh and suddenly launched itself into Ryan's face, it's brass beak aimed directly at his one good eye.


RYAN WOKE UP, trembling, soaked in sweat. He lay still for a few moments, his right hand fumbling automatically for the butt of the SIG-Sauer. It took only a second for him to locate it, though the cool slick metal felt oddly unfamiliar to the touch.
Once he had the blaster secure and cocked in his fingers, he lay still, trying to relax, fighting to slow his breath and steady his heartbeat. He realized in a few seconds that Krysty was no longer lying at his side. With her sensitivity to mood changes she would immediately have been aware of his distress.
He wondered where she'd gone, what the time was.
Cautiously Ryan lifted his right hand over his good eye, cupping it as he made sure that the eye was open, feeling the lashes brush against the skin of his palm, confirming movement. Then he slowly moved his hand away again.
"Anything, lover?"
"Fireblast!"
"Sorry. Didn't mean to make you jump. I know what you said, but I came in and saw you experimenting. Guess there's still no glimmer of light."
It was a simple flat statement with no hint of a question to it.
"Nothing," Ryan said, the single word as abrupt and harsh as a handful of dirt thrown on a coffin lid.


JAK AND J.B. HAD BEEN OUT together on an early-morning recce. It was obvious that Ryan couldn't have gone out with them on a potentially dangerous mission, but it still hurt him that the Armorer hadn't, at least, gone through the motions of consulting him.
But he said nothing and listened intently as the pair reported back to the others over a breakfast of cold chicken and ham, with bread and cheese and a variety of the preserves that had been stolen the previous evening.
Johannes Forde was knocking back the whiskey, moaning constantly at the taste. "Worst I ever knew. Got to have me another chugalug just to make sure it's as hideous as I thought on the first drink." He had another swig, then sighed as he wiped his mouth and beard with his sleeve. "God damn Judas and all the little devils! I reckon it's worse than I remembered it. Guess I should have me another sip." After a pause he added, "Worse every time I try it. Anyone want to join me in getting rid of this catamount's piss?"
Ryan heard Doc's voice, the only one in the group to answer. "I will force down a drop or two. I have always said that there is nothing like good drinking whiskey." Doc choked, then let loose a spluttering cough. "By the Three Kennedys! This is nothing like good drinking whiskey!"
"Ryan, care for some?" Forde asked.
"No. Thanks."
J.B. spoke. "I was starting to tell you about Bramton. Sign called it Bramtown, but the store calls it Bramton. And the ruined church was the First Tabernacle of the Fishers of Men of Bramton, Louisiana."
"See anything of this Family we heard about?"
"Nothing, Ryan," Jak answered. "There's trout farm other side of the ville. Seems main source work. Also logging. River runs through place. Goes off east through high bluffs. Could be big house there."
"Seemed normal," the Armorer added. "Reckon there's about two hundred or so men, women and children in the ville." He hesitated a moment.
"Go on," Ryan prompted.
"Something kind of off kilter the way they walked. Not the usual kind of chatter of women doing washing in the stream by the mill. Children seemed listless. Kind of halfhearted in their playing."
"Dogs ran quiet," Jak said.
"Watched from the screen of trees." J.B. sniffed. Ryan knew from long experience that the diminutive figure of his oldest companion had taken off his spectacles and was wiping the lenses clean, using the action to try to get his thoughts collected before he spoke again.
"Leave the glasses and get on with it," Ryan growled.
"Sorry" J.B. sounded thrown by the interruption. "We hung around a half hour or so. Well, twenty-eight minutes by the wrist chron. Nobody came near us. Seemed like everyone knew precisely what they had to do and when they had to do it. Almost like robots in a predark vid."
"What kind of weapons they have?" Dean asked. "Messed-up scatterguns like the fat bitch in the voodoo store or the old flintlock that blew away ?"
"Blew away my eye," Ryan said, aware of how loud his voice sounded in the echoing old house. "Don't have to worry about saying it, son. Always tell it how it is."
"Still early days, Ryan," Mildred remonstrated, her fingers playing nervously with the small golden crucifix. "Early days."
"Yeah, sure." Ryan hated himself for the bitterness, overlaid with self-pity, that he heard in his own voice.
J.B. coughed. "Pass me another slice of that smoked ham, will you, Krysty? Thanks. You asked me about what kind of weapons they had, Dean?"
"Right."
"Didn't see much weaponry. Couple of Kentucky muskets, bound up with baling wire, looking like they were last fired in anger in the revolutionary wars."
Ryan was surprised at how honed and heightened his other senses had become since the blinding. He could actually hear J.B. turn toward Jak for confirmation.
"Most had long knives or axes. Workers. Saw one revolver. Holstered. Mebbe .38."
"Surprisingly little blaster power for a couple of hundred souls," J.B. observed.
"Bows?" Ryan asked.
"Didn't see any Jak?"
"No. Some animal skins drying on stretchers outside one house. Probably hunted with arrows."
"Not samurai arrows," Krysty said.
J.B. gave a short, barking laugh. "No. Not a sign of those bastards around here."
"Some strips gator meat drying." Jak cut another slice of the bread. "Funny no guards. Must've missed food."
"Yeah, right, Jak." Ryan sat cross-legged on the floor, a piece of bread spread thick with gooseberry preserve in his left hand. "Reckoned they'd have been on double red after losing the chicken and stuff last night."
His eye was sore and he rubbed at it, vaguely admiring the bright patterns that whirled and drifted across the retina.
Forde stretched and belched loudly. "Sorry for that, ladies and friends," he said. "Still, better out than in, as my dear old silver-haired mother used to say. I was wondering whether the fair ville of Bramton might appreciate a showing of some of the finest 16 mm films in the whole florid history of Deathlands?"
"They might," Ryan said. "Only one way to find out. Let's go ask them."