Chapter Nineteen

 

"A man lives long enough and slows down his life," the Trader was saying, "he's going to have a lot of regrets."

 

In the jump dream, Ryan walked with the older man. The Trader carried his Armalite and hacked and coughed just the way Ryan remembered. Only the one-eyed man knew almost for a fact that the Trader was nowhere around Hazard, and probably nowhere near around where they were jumping to.

 

He scanned the hostile terrain they were in, all rad-blasted and shooting up twisted trees from a ground that looked like burned glass. He couldn't say that he'd ever been to such a place, but it didn't seem too far from reality for Deathlands.

 

The next couple steps, though, brought them to the edge of a thickly wooded area that looked like something out of a painting Doc had once shown them. The trees stood straight and tall, reaching up into the white fleecy clouds that had taken the place of the rad-dust-filled clouds that had hovered overhead earlier. Those had been purple and cancerous, greenish around the edges.

 

"I don't have any regrets," Ryan said.

 

The Trader shrugged and came to a stop, looking out over the forest. "I know you don't think you do now, but you're getting long in the tooth."

 

A boy's face peered through the branches. Innocence gleamed in his bright, impossibly blue eyes, followed by a shy smile that promised mischief. Ryan figured the boy hadn't seen ten years yet, and probably hadn't been past the forest's edge.

 

"You're older than I am, Trader," Ryan said. "Mebbe you got regrets."

 

The man shook his head. "No regrets for me. Did everything in my life that I set out to do. Ain't the same with you."

 

Ryan's vision misted red as his anger took him. "How do you figure that?"

 

The boy across the glade stepped into the open. And the full impossibility of him stepped into Ryan's view. From the waist up, the boy looked totally norm, but from the waist down he was all horse. His upper body swayed sinuously as his lower four legs moved him forward. He darted forward in a quick thumping of unshod hooves, like he was going to come right up to Ryan and the Trader. Then he stopped, still a dozen feet away, and galloped back to the tree line.

 

"Play?" he asked in a melodious voice.

 

 

"Got no time to play," Trader growled. "Go away, boy, you're bothering me."

 

Two other centaurs came from the woods, one male and one female, her pendulous breasts swinging freely. The male carried a bow with an arrow already set to string. The female carried a spear with a long blade set on the other end.

 

"You didn't answer my question, Trader." The man swung around on Ryan and caught him with a backhanded slap that sent the one-eyed man crashing to the ground. Black comets swirled in Ryan's vision, bouncing crazily off each other.

 

"Don't you be getting uppity with me," Trader snarled. "I made you who you are. I can damn sure unmake youmake you a follower, or a lone wolf." Ryan forced himself not to draw the SIG-Sauer. After he'd located the Trader, they'd had some harsh words between them, but nothing like this. "Okay, Trader. Sorry. Mebbe I was out of line."

 

"You were out of line," Trader agreed, "and you're never going to be in line again. You want to know why?"

 

"Sure." Ryan went along with the dream, hoping it would end soon.

 

He walked with the Trader again, threading through the forest. Then the terrain shifted, and the Trader walked without concern across the ocean that stretched beneath him.

 

Ryan followed, not as able to walk on the water as his companion. His boots sunk ankle deep into the emerald ocean.

 

"It's because of your son," Trader said. "Because of Dean that you'll never be without regrets. Having children does something to a man. Takes his edge off, takes away his zest for life and the unexpected that makes him the adventurer he's supposed to be. And having children replaces those things with fear. Lock, stock and barrel, and you better bastard believe it."

 

"Dean's making me stronger in some ways," Ryan argued.

 

Trader shot him a murderous glance. "You daring disrespect my view, you worthless baron-get whelp?"

 

Ryan forced out a no. But he noticed that his disagreement with the Trader caused him to sink in the ocean up past his shins. The going got tougher as he fought the water. Whatever surface he walked on beneath the water also felt more spongy.

 

"Good, because I don't want to see you drown out here, Ryan. Truly I don't. I looked after your ass for a number of years, and I don't like to see all that time go to waste."

 

Ryan struggled to keep up with the older man, losing nearly half a step. And there was no end of the ocean in sight.

 

"Dean's going to pull you down," Trader went on. "You're going to want more for the boy than you'd want for yourself. A man knows his own limitations, knows the hardships he can handle. Always makes the wrong call when he tries raising children. That's woman's work."

 

Ryan knew the real Trader didn't feel like that. Not exactly. But the voice carried a timbre of truth with it.

 

"You'd been better off if the boy had been stillborn," Trader said. "You're always going to be risking what you have to make a better shake for Dean. And for what? Paying penance for a quick roll in the hay with that slut Sharona? Man should put a higher price on his future than that."

 

The Trader was out of reach now, and the ocean sucked at Ryan's boots.

 

"That's not true," Ryan yelled. The ocean drank him down, swallowing him up to his hips. "Dean can carry his own weight." Suddenly he couldn't move forward anymore.

 

The Trader turned and put his hands on his hips. "Look at you now, Ryan. You're about to be in over your bastard head, and you can't even admit it. You used to be more pragmatic than that."

 

"Fuck you!" Ryan exploded, trying to pull himself through the chest-high water. "You aren't Trader! Trader wouldn't say anything like that!" He struggled now, trying to keep his head above water.

 

"Dean's just Sharona's way of dragging you down even after she's caught the last train to the coast herself," Trader said.

 

The water closed over Ryan's head. He fought clear of it with difficulty, smashing his arms against the ocean. But he knew the sustained effort would exhaust him in short order.

 

Then something closed around his crotch and yanked him down. Underwater now, he glanced down to see what had hold of him, surprised he didn't feel claws or teeth. Some of the mutie fishes living in the rad-blasted oceans were spun right out of nightmare.

 

Only it wasn't a mutie fish or a water monster that held him. It was Sharona Carson, the dead mother of Dean.

 

She was as Ryan remembered in her better days, golden haired and looking as beautiful as any woman could want to be. She wore a purple diaphanous gown that hugged her curves and clung to her breasts.

 

Before Ryan knew it, he was naked. Sharona had hold of his erection, continuing to pull him down into the waiting darkness. Ryan's lungs ballooned up inside his chest, threatening to explode. He reached for her wrist, trying to find a pressure point.

 

Only this Sharona's wrist was as hard and as slick as any sec droid's. She held him effortlessly in one hand.

 

"Coming to stay with me this time, Ryan. We'll talk about Dean. You'll like that, won't you?"

 

Weak now and barely able to move, Ryan felt his senses swirling. But he saw Sharona's mouth open, saw her starting to take his hardness in. Her teeth glinted like diamonds, edged like razors.

 

Ryan screamed a denial, and the word took form in the shape of an explosion of bubbles around him. His last breath left his body as he grabbed Sharona by the hair and tried in vain to keep her razored mouth back.

 

She bit down.

 

 

 

ALBERT LOOKED AROUND, surprised to find himself in a cave. "Doc?"

 

There was no answer.

 

The cave in front of him seemed to stretch on like some dark, ugly throat. Wind blew its fetid breath over him from somewhere ahead, carrying with it the stench of sulfurous farts.

 

He turned and tried to go back, but all he found was solid rock blocking his way. He didn't understand that at all. It was funny that he couldn't remember waking up, walking out of the mat-trans unit. But it wasn't humorous.

 

The fetid wind continued to blow over him, feeling like it was drying him out. He guessed that after a couple hours of standing around in it, a man might begin to resemble a hunk of jerked beef.

 

He drew his .38s and called out for Doc again. All he heard was the distant rolling thunder of his own voice. Having no other choice, he went forward through the cave.

 

Light gleamed all around. At first he thought the walls were rad-blasted and he was walking into certain death, but then he saw that lichens gathered on the rough stone surfaces. It was their internal glow that lighted the way.

 

The tunnel continued down, and the wind grew hotter. Albert sweated profusely. His clothes were soaking wet before he figured he'd gone half a mile.

 

Then the path he followed leveled out and widened, opening onto a big cave that he couldn't see across. A small dock jutted for a short distance into the calm black water, hewed of logs that had to have been carried a long way because Albert saw no trees nearby.

 

Beside the dock was a long, narrow boat, whose ends rose up in five-foot-tall spires that turned into carved goat's horns.

 

Because of the distance, Albert wasn't sure if he really saw movement in the boat. But it looked like one shadow shifted slightly.

 

Then a self-light flared to life, held in a bony, spectral claw. It burned, creating a nimbus of light that hurt the dwarfs eyes even at the distance. The man holding the self-light wore a long purple robe that seemed mottled with black mushrooms that grew out of it.

 

"Are you coming, Albert?" The voice sounded like something from the last gasp of a grave.

 

The robed figure put the self-light to a lantern hanging from the boat spire behind it. The wick caught, flaring up like it had been dry for days, before the heat pulled the oil through the strands. Then the robed figure threw the self-light onto the dark water of the underground river.

 

Albert could see that it was a river now, could see bits of flotsam along the left. With the lantern light going now, he also saw they were bits and pieces of corpses. An arm floated by, missing three fingers and whose stubs showed they had been gnawed off by some kind of animal.

 

"No, I'm not coming," Albert replied.

 

"Stay there and you'll die," the robed figure whispered.

 

"And if I go with you?" Albert demanded.

 

"Oh, you'll still die." The robed figure chuckled, and it was the sound of dry bones rubbing together. "But it'll be later."

 

"Fuck you," Albert said, pointing his blasters at the boatman. "You can't make me go."

 

"No." The boatman settled the hurricane glass over the lantern. It was tinted a light blue, the color of a vein beneath a light covering of flesh. And it was in the shape of a fat-bodied spider, with ruby-colored mandibles protruding from its fierce mouth. With the wick burning and shifting inside it, the legs looked as if they were moving. "But I can make you stay here." He picked up a long pole made up of what looked like shin bones. "Mebbe it's worse than what you think might be up ahead."

 

Albert turned as the earth shivered behind him. Without warning, the smooth slope of the short beach leading to the river ruptured in dozens of places. Things that might have once been human surged up from the ground.

 

Lifting a blaster, Albert fired at the nearest one, expecting to see the .38 load knock the thing on its butt. Instead, a puff of dust rose from the thing's chest, and it kept coming.

 

"Your choice," the boatman declared. "Mebbe you should think about the boat less traveled by." The dry bones laughter echoed mockingly throughout the huge cave.

 

Greenish saliva dripping with maggots crusted the undead creatures' mouths as they came for Albert. Their chests were alive with eel things that looked every bit as hungry as their hosts.

 

Albert fired both .38s empty, but the flying lead didn't slow the undead things at all.

 

"Time grows short, Albert. You have to go to the lady in the lake if you want to survive."

 

Abandoning his position, Albert raced for the boat, his boots thudding against the hewed logs. The boatman had already pushed it out into the current, so he had to leap to get there.

 

"Who are you and what the hell is this place?" Albert demanded breathlessly. His hands shook as he struggled to reload his weapons. He scanned the beach anxiously, watching the undead things walk into the water. He shivered uncontrollably, thinking how the creatures might walk out under the water and gain on the slowly drifting boat.

 

"My name is Bob," the boatman said, "and hell is precisely what this is."

 

"Where are the others?" Albert demanded as he snapped the cylinders closed on the .38s.

 

"There are no others," Bob answered. "You are the only one." He turned his tattered face toward the center of the river.

 

"What are you doing here?"

 

"Me? Why I was scheduled to pick you up. I assure you, I had much better things to do. Napoleon was all set to conquer Europe again, but he didn't know Joan of Arc had risen once more to lead William's troops into battle. Or that General Custer had crossed the Atlantic after winning at the Battle of Little Bighorn to help the Germans."

 

Listening to the boatman speak made Albert's head hurt. Some of what the robed man said made sense, but it was all jumbled up in there, as well. He pointed his blasters at the boatman. "You say you're taking me to see the lady in the lake."

 

"Yes." Bob regarded him calmly. "That is your destiny. It has always been your destiny."

 

"I don't know a lady in the lake."

 

"Albert, please, you must calm down."

 

"I am calm." But Albert knew he was lying because his hands shook as he held the .38s.

 

Abruptly the spider-shaped hurricane glass pulled free of the lantern, somehow keeping the burning wick trapped inside it. The glass spider with its belly full of fire climbed down the spire and started along the edge of the boat for Albert.

 

"Now see," Bob said irritably, "you've gotten Morris upset again. Put those bastard guns away or he might bite you."

 

Instead, Albert turned the blasters on the glass spider and ripped off two shots. Both of them hit the spider but ricocheted off.

 

"You can't harm it," the boatman said. "Remember? Or mebbe you don't remember anything at all."

 

Albert shook his head in disbelief. "Every time it gets harder for you," the boatman stated. "I worry about you when you're gone." He raised his voice, but it was only a stronger, sibilant whisper. "Morris, leave him be."

 

The glass spider froze, glinting cobalt blue crystalline. It stood up on its back four legs and raised the front four as if scenting the sulfurous air. Reluctantly it began the journey back to the lantern base. "I want to go back with the others," Albert said. "And if you can't arrange that, I want to go back to Hazard. At least there I understand things."

 

"Everything here will be made clear soon," Bob said in a gentle tone. He continued poling, pushing them out into the center of the river.

 

"Who is the lady in the lake?" Albert asked.

 

Even though he knew his blasters were pretty much useless, he found he couldn't holster them. The idea of going through this with empty hands turned his stomach. Sweat dripped from his face, and he realized that some of the heat he was feeling came from the river water.

 

More body parts drifted by, some of them bumping briefly against the boat with soft thuds before floating on. There were, he saw, a great number of internal pieces now, as well as body parts. Gobby masses of intestines floated past, looking like obscene jellyfish. Chitin-covered insects clung to them like they were life rafts.

 

"To know her is to love her," Bob said with a sigh. "I know I do."

 

"What does she want with me?"

 

Bob turned his rad-blasted face to Albert. "I don't know. Honestly. The whole concept of her needing you is beyond me. I never thought she did. And I don't think you've fooled her into thinking you care for her." He poled once more, waited a moment, then put his pole in front of them. "Well, here we are."

 

The boat stopped, cresting the gentle current of the slow-moving river.

 

"Here we are where?" Albert asked. He looked all around the boat, seeing only the black water. But the thought of the undead corpses walking along the bottom unnerved him.

 

"Where she is," Bob answered. "The lady in the lake."

 

"How deep is the water here?"

 

Bob took a moment to think about the question, then glanced at the glass spider. "Morris, do you know?"

 

The glass spider did some quick arithmetic on its four front glass legs, then twisted toward the boatman. The legs flew in quick answer.

 

"About ninety feet, give or take two or three," Bob replied.

 

"Your pole isn't that long," Albert argued.

 

"A gentleman doesn't talk about the length of another gentleman's pole." Bob the boatman drew himself up to his full, tall, thin height and wrapped his robes more tightly around him as if incensed.

 

"You can't have been touching bottom all the way to pole us out here."

 

Bob drew the pole up, displaying the cracked but polished collection of shinbones that made it up. "Albert, haven't you ever noticed that no matter how tall or short a man is, his legs always touch the ground? The pole, just because it is a pole, has not lost that ability."

 

To Albert that made no sense. Without warning, nausea seized him again, feeling like it had back in the elevator in the redoubt. He dropped his .38s and fell to his knees, retching as he clung to the side of the boat.

 

The water roiled in front of him, tossing the gobby chunks he'd just spit up back into the boat and over him. When they landed, they started running around, forming tails and legs.

 

"She's coming!" Bob cried in his thin, dry voice. "The lady of the lake is coming!"

 

"This is a river," Albert argued, "not a lake." Somehow it seemed important to point that out. "Shouldn't she be called the lady of the river?"

 

Before Bob could answer, a typhoon suddenly took shape beside the boat, erupting from the water. Gory parts of corpses and whole bodies twisted up in a column of water that shot over twenty feet into the air. A woman formed of the water, as black as ebony and smooth as marble. Her eyes were green rot scraped from a mildewed coffin, and her teeth as hard and thick as tombstones.

 

Still, she was beautiful when she smiled.

 

She reached for Albert, lifting him gently from the boat. At first her watery grip felt soothing and warm, like a bed in the middle of winter.

 

Then the flesh began to melt from his bones as the acid ate into him.