James Axler - Pilgrimage to Hell

He was aware of Kelber close to him on his left. He seemed to be having difficulty getting up, or so it appeared. He was on his knees, both hands to his throat, making ghastly gobbling noises. One hand went out to Strasser. It looked as though he was pleading, begging Strasser for mercy. His eyes were almost popping out of his head and Ryan could see the whites of them clearly.

The beetle, he thought — what the hell happened to the beetle when I banged Strasser into him?

And then he laughed out loud, a harsh and chilling sound even to him. So perish the wicked, he thought.

"Your friend. I think he swallowed the beetle."

Kelber, still on his knees, scrambled toward Strasser, pleading, imploring. Ryan couldn't imagine why — Kelber ought to know by now there was no help there, no pity in the gaunt man — but he could imagine those tusklike mandibles sinking into gullet flesh so determinedly that no amount of hawking and gagging would clear the filthy little bastard out. The hell with the pair of them, he thought, and fired at Strasser.

No sound but a metallic click.

No round.

He realized it was Strasser's gun and the eight-clip had been all used up. He hurled the weapon at Strasser, and the heavy automatic struck the gaunt man full in the mouth. Strasser squealed, fell back, spitting blood and bits of tooth. Ryan made to jump for him but Strasser was back on his feet again, sprinting away, clutching his shoulder, his long legs stabbing at the ground, boots splashing into puddles.

At that moment Kelber gave forth a high-pitched bubbling wail of pain and terror and stark, beyond-the-last-ditch horror. He pitched sideways, still screaming, and Ryan saw black blood welling up out of his mouth like dark chocolate. Kelber lay on his back, his body twisting and writhing, his legs kicking in the air. His screams died sloppily as he began to drown in his own blood.

Ryan flung himself around and jumped for the short ladder to the door, knowing that the seconds were clicking away, nearer and nearer to a total wipeout. He wrenched open the door and fell inside. There was a faint and musty smell to the interior. He felt a prickling at the back of his throat, but nothing more. He yanked the door shut, on personal full-auto now, sheer survival the only consideration. It was too late for the rest of the convoy. It would have been physically impossible to make safe the other vehicles. The explosions to the east had ceased, only fire consuming what remained lit the sky now, an angry orange dancing against the deeper red of the night.

He knew that the Trader would have automatically thrown the On as soon as he heard the train had been nerved out and as soon as he realized he was surrounded. And the captains of the other vehicles would have done the same. It would have been a reflex action. Therefore, the convoy was set to blow only minutes after the land wag train.

He shoved Cohn unceremoniously out of his radio chair, felt for the box under the table, snapped over the lever there. Then he dived for the ladder up to the machine gun blister in the roof. O'Mara was still in his seat, slumped forward, dead to the world. Ryan reached past him for the MG grips, canted the weapon, opened up and proceeded to flay the truck parked beside the war wag at almost point-blank range. Blazing tracers ripped into the back of the truck's cab, opening it up, chewing it apart, and Ryan could hear nothing but the terrible chatter of the gun, could see nothing but the devastation it created.

He jumped back down to the main cabin and dived for the drive seat. Ches was lying on the floor beside it, and Ryan stepped over him and sat down. He began to play the console, feeling a stupendous relief flooding through him as the engine bellowed into life. He glanced to his right, saw flames in the cab of the parked truck, a guy silently screaming and haloed in fire as he struggled to claw himself out the open window — then that scene was wiped as the huge MCP lurched forward, gathering speed. He flicked the spotlight on, and the gloom became bright day in an instant. He saw fireflies all around him, red muzzle-flash winking in the dark beyond the spotlight's beam, and could hear the rattle of rounds on the sides of the cab. They could still kill him. All it needed was tracer at the front and the temporary screen would blow apart and him with it. He jabbed one of the firing buttons on the console and cannon fire hammered out its death song from below, pounding a buggy in front that suddenly ripped apart in a gout of white fire as its gas tank erupted. Figures fled away from his spot beam; any one of them could have been Strasser.

To one side another buggy lurched into life, and Ryan savagely swung the wheel to send the war wag barreling into it. The smaller vehicle was smashed sideways, and Ryan felt the MCP rise and yaw, crunching through a sudden tangle of steel, twisting and crushing the other vehicle beneath its ponderous weight. He swung the wheel again and felt the rear tracks ride over what was left.

Where the hell was Krysty?

He saw her, a fleet figure sprinting into his beam along the road. He sent the war wag crashing up and onto the blacktop, aimed it for Mocsin and geared it into full-auto mode. Then he scrambled over Ches and moved fast across the cabin area to the door to unfasten it. The war wag ground on along the road, medium fast, and the young woman appeared in the doorway, running alongside before grabbing Ryan's outstretched hand. He hauled her in as more bright light tore the night apart and the war wag shuddered. Ryan slammed the door shut, cutting off the worst of the thunderous explosions that were now ripping through the convoy.

"Co-driver's seat," he yelled, hurdling sprawled bodies and diving back into the chair, snapping the brute vehicle out of auto and wrenching the wheel as another shock wave from the self-destructing convoy hammered at them.

Krysty collapsed into the seat beside him, wiping an arm across her mud— and sweat-stained face.

She gasped, "Is life with the Trader always like this?"

The smoke from the fire coiled uneasily, circling upward among the branches of the surrounding trees. The lodgepole pine burned with a crackling intensity, spitting out sap in spluttering bursts like rifle fire. Ryan lay back against the trunk of a fallen cottonwood, watching the gray pillar of smoke as it disappeared above him, vanishing long before it reached the top of the forest.

The wind was rising, bringing the stinging taste of a cold blue norther. The patches of sky that he could see through the trees were raven black, torn across every few minutes by the jagged silver lace of lightning. Above the crackling of the pine logs he could hear the far-off rumbling of thunder in the tall peaks of the Darks.

In the clearing around him were all the survivors of the massacre at Mocsin, sitting or lying sprawled. There had not been the time or the opportunity to save anyone outside of War Wag One. Even as Ryan had driven away, heading north and west through the sleeting rain, the heavy vehicle had rocked and twisted against the explosions of the rest of the train. The time bombs had all done their work successfully, just as they'd been designed to.

The big combat carrier now stood fifty paces away, on the edge of the rutted track. In the quiet, he could hear the clicking of the armor plate as it cooled in the evening chill. There were four or five men still on board, carrying out essential maintenance checks. Loz was clearing up after the meal of heated stew and beans. Cohn was running around the dials of his radio of many parts, trying to pick up news of pursuit.

The rest of the survivors were all around Ryan, some already asleep. Something rustled out among the pines, and Ryan's hand dropped to his pistol. Abe grinned at him from the far side of the fire.