James Axler: Neutron Solstice

"These bastard fly-bugs are the biggest I ever saw," added Finnegan.

"Muties," commented J.B., laconic as ever.

The Armorer used his pocket sextant to take a sighting of the glowering orb of the sun through the dense foliage of the forest surrounding them. It confirmed his original suspicion that they were in the Deep South, around two hundred miles west of the old port of New Orleans.

"Cajun country," said Doc Tanner, pausing to wipe sweat from his brow with a massive kerchief with a swallow's-eye design.

"What's a Cajun?" asked Ryan, easing the shoulder strap of his weapon.

"Around five hundred years ago, back in the 1600s, the French settled on a part of the east coast that would later be known as Nova Scotia. The soil being fertile and the climate temperate, the settlers called their paradise Acadia. More than a hundred years later, the British drove them out of the region and the Acadians fled south to these parts. Acadians got corrupted to Cajuns. Simple, isn't it?"

Nobody said anything, and Ryan wondered, as he had a hundred times in the past few weeks, just how the old man came to have such a bottomless supply of knowledge.

After leaving the small redoubt they had tugged the door shut behind them. At J.B.'s suggestion, they had put a tracer on it so they could find their way back through the labyrinth. But the tiny trans didn't work.

"Damp," said J.B. disgustedly. "Don't have another. Have to watch our path real careful."

Ryan led the way, following the faint remains of a narrow two-lane blacktop through the trees and shrubs. Never in his life had he seen anything like this place. Not even in his dreams.

Though it was nearly noon, the sky was filled with a dull, hazy greenish light. On both sides of the road there was the sullen glint of water, rainbow-tinted where oil lay on its surface. Cypress and pecan saplings twined about each other, with groves of beautiful oaks and graceful elms. And over all of the forest were the smothering veils of Spanish moss, dangling from every branch like spider webs. As the sun broke against it, the moss seemed to shift and alter, diffusing the light in shards of white and gold where the shadows gathered, the moss changed color like a chameleon, from green to gray.

Two hundred paces from the building, they came across what had been the security gate. There had been triple-layer barbed wire with porcelain conductors, evidently meant to carry a lethal dose of electricity. But over the decades the planet had struck back at the man-made intrusions. Fallen trees had smashed the fences; long creepers had brought down the guard towers where machine guns rusted in the gloom.

It took several minutes for Ryan to lead his party over and under and around the tumbled trees, using his panga to hack away at the clinging ivy. Several times he heard something scuttling away from them but did not see what it was.

They came to a fork in the road, and Hennings stepped across to examine the remains of a notice board rested crookedly against the stump of a dead azalea. But as he attempted to pick it up, the wood crumbled in his fingers, rotted by beetles and the humidity.

Passing more fallen barriers and fences, Ryan realized how tight the security must have been when the redoubt was built, way back at the end of the twentieth century. Now it was all wiped away by the bombing and by the weather that followed.

"Much nuking down here, J.B.?" he asked.

"Never been hereabouts. Recall some trader in a gaudy house near Windy City saying they used some kind o' new missiles. Kills life and leaves things standing."

Both men started, looked upward through a break in the covering branches, seeing a great white bird with beautiful plumage soaring far above them. Neither of them recognized the creature as a snowy egret.

"What we going to do 'bout food, Ryan?" asked Finn, stopping to shoo away a cloud of tiny orange flies that gathered around his flushed face.

"This road's got to lead somewhere. We all got food tabs. Place like this might have dirties living close by. Take their food."

The idea of getting food from the backward muties who were supposed to live deep within some of the more isolated swamp areas wasn't that attractive to anyone.

"There," said Lori, pointing ahead, where the trail narrowed by the remains of a high fence. It was now a tangled heap of rusting steel.

"Looks like there could be a real highway yonder," Hennings said.

He was wrong.

It was a back way into a kind of park. There was a wooden causeway, floating on the watery mud that flooded the area. Some of the logs had rotted and broken, and others shook dangerously as Ryan stepped carefully on them. Leading the way, he warned the others to be cautious and keep ten paces apart.

The trees became sparser, comprised mainly of intertwined mangroves set in the water, some leaning and toppling. The water opened into a kind of bay, offering a visibility of up to a couple of hundred paces. The sun was a watery gold, sailing in a sky dotted with purple and black clouds. Intermittently Ryan noticed that the surface of the swamps was broken every now and then by a rippling splash, as if something had moved or jumped. But it was always the actual enlarging rings of water that caught his eye; he was never quick enough to see what was doing it. Once, as he was standing on the edge of the piling, staring down into the thick brown water, he was sure something large passed underneath, setting up a sullen rippling on the surface.

"What's that?" asked Krysty, pointing at a thick square post with the number 25 deeply etched into its sloping top. At its base was a black plastic box.

"Looks like a small trans. J.B. what d'you reckon?"

"Could be. Antipersonnel, mebbe. Pick up intruders by the gateway. Fire gas? Looks like it's well iced by now."

Doc stopped to peer at it, running his gnarled fingers over the carved numbers.

"Upon my soul, but this rings a far-off and tiny bell in some back room. I believe... no, it eludes me, I fear."

The next two posts along the causeway had rotted away to mere stumps. At a curve in the trail, many of the logs had collapsed into the murky swamp below, and they had to leap the gap. Doc surprised everyone by leaping across like a startled gazelle, but Lori found it harder, eventually removing her high boots and throwing them across first, and finally jumped with little difficulty.

Finn slipped on landing and opened a small cut on his hand. He bent over to wash it in the swamp. "Water's warm," he said, raising his hand to his lips and licking it. "Warm and salty."

"Not that far from the sea. Only a few miles from Gulf o' Mexico. Few years back they had vicious acid rainstorms here. Strip a man to his bones in a few minutes if you got caught in one. Seems calmer."

"Chem clouds is gathering," said Hennings, pointing with the muzzle of his gray HK54A submachine gun.

The sky was blackening, the violet becoming a deep royal purple. The sun ducked and dived behind the clouds, sending shadows racing across the water.

"Best move faster," urged Ryan.

Passing more wooden posts, he automatically noticed the numbers. They stopped at a post numbered 18.

"You are approaching the end of the Audubon self-guiding nature trail. Remember, the planks may be slippery, so use the handrails and ropes where provided. Children should hold the hand of an adult."

The disembodied voice was so sudden and shocking that Ryan slipped and came within an ace of tumbling head over heels into the turgid slime.

"Fucking fireblast!" said Ryan, recovering his balance and his composure.

The voice went on, creaking a little like an old farm gate in need of oiling, occasionally fading and then rising again.

"In the basin directly in front of you are thousands of tiny green turtles. If you see or hear something slithering in the water, then it just might be old brother alligator. But they have been carefully selected to prevent them growing too big, so don't be frightened."