George Chesbro - Second Horseman Out of Eden

His roar went up two or three octaves, and his torso came down. I brought the butt of the gun down with all the strength I could muster onto the top of his shaved head, and that sent him crashing to the floor.

From past experience, I estimated that it would take me at least a week to beat Tanker Thompson to death, and I had neither the inclination nor the time to hang around to see if he was going to stay on the floor. "Let's go, Vicky!" I shouted, grabbing the child's hand and pulling her after me out of the room.

We ran through the living room, and out the front door. When Vicky tripped, I swept her up in my arms and carried her, staggering drunkenly as I tried to run on legs that felt like rotten rubber. Sweat was pouring into my eyes, blinding me. Gasping for breath, I weaved my way down the center of the road back the way we had come, toward the shores of Eden's ocean.

I suffered two serious stumbles, but I managed to catch myself each time before I fell with the child in my arms. After what seemed an eternity of breathlessness and pain, I reached the shore of the ocean-which, now that I looked closer in the shimmering, pale green light, appeared to be covered with lumps of what looked suspiciously like unprocessed human excrement. I set Vicky down, looked up and down the shoreline. Twenty-five yards to my right, barely visible in the eerie chemical glow, were a rowboat and a kayak with portals for two people. In the distance, in what seemed to me at least a lifetime away across the ocean, the green, misty mass of the rain forest rose up, filling the entire end of the dome.

And I was about to pass out. I reached into my pocket with a violently shaking hand, took out the bottle of pills. I shook one out, popped it in my mouth, and swallowed it.

"He's coming, Mr. Mongo!" Vicky screamed.

I spun around and was astonished to see Tanker Thompson, blood running down over his bruise-colored face, hobbling up the road toward us, dragging his left leg along behind him. He was holding the fire ax firmly in his hands, occasionally using it as a crutch.

Although the amphetamine certainly couldn't have had time to work its way into my bloodstream, the sight of the ax-wielding Tanker Thompson making his way up the road had a near-miraculous effect on my nervous system and energy level. It was motivational. Vicky ran on ahead of me as, pumping my arms and gasping in the fetid air, I managed to shuffle along at a pretty good pace across the feces-covered sand to the boats. There was a two-bladed paddle next to the kayak. I gave the rowboat a shove with my foot, sending it out into the water, then sat Vicky down in the front portal of the kayak. I slid into the back, pushed against the sand with my paddle, and we glided out over the greenish-brown water.

I grabbed the two-bladed paddle in the center, with my hands about two feet apart, then began paddling, stroking first on one side, then the other. I tried to concentrate on keeping my pace steady, for it seemed an impossibly long distance across the polluted body of water, and I knew I was very near the edge of my energy reserves. I'd needed the pill, because I'd been close to collapsing, but now I was having a reaction. I wasn't having the near-hallucinations I'd experienced before, but it felt like there was a ball of fire in my stomach-and the ball was gradually growing hotter as it expanded, sending tongues of flame throughout the rest of my body. I didn't like the sensation at all.

"Vicky," I said to the child in a stranger's voice that shocked me with its raw hoarseness. "You have to point out to me where we have to go."

"I. . I'm not sure, Mr. Mongo. Daddy never took me over there when it was dark like this."

"Do the best you can, sweetheart. We have to land as close to the machine as possible."

Vicky hesitated, then pointed off to the right at a forty-five-degree angle. "I think it's over there, Mr. Mongo."

I stroked twice, hard, on my left, waited while the nose of the kayak swung around to the desired direction, then resumed my steady windmill paddling, trying to concentrate on taking deep, steady breaths. The air was growing even fouler as we crossed the water toward the far shore with its infernal machine, and the rain forest beyond.

"He's coming, Mr. Mongo!" Vicky cried out in a small, frightened voice as she pointed back over my shoulder.

Although I knew it would disrupt my rhythm, fear made me stop paddling and glance back behind me. I wished I hadn't. We were perhaps a quarter of the way across Eden's ocean; yet, despite the fact that Tanker Thompson had to be suffering a giant headache, and despite the fact that he'd had to wade or swim out into the water to retrieve the rowboat, he was no more than twenty-five or thirty yards behind me. Like the monsters of nightmares that keep coming at you, he was rowing the boat with steady, powerful strokes generated by his bulk and the bulging muscles in his broad back and thick arms. Even with his back to me, I could see that he was covered with offal from the fouled waters; he glistened in the pale green light like some giant slug turned into human form.

As I stared back at him, momentarily paralyzed with horror, he slowed his pace slightly, turned around, and met my gaze. He was close enough so that I could clearly see his features; his small eyes were filled with hate, and his lips were twisted in a grimace of fierce determination. The main outrider of the second horseman out of Eden was threatening to ride me down-or sink me. I wondered if he still had his fire ax with him.

I wondered what time it was, and if it was going to make any difference.

And then Tanker Thompson turned back, leaned far forward, dipped his oars in the water, and gave a mighty pull. His boat seemed to surge through the water; with that one pull, it seemed to me that he had almost halved the distance between us.

His performance was tremendously inspiring to me.

"Are we still heading in the right direction, Vicky?!" I shouted as I turned my head forward and began to paddle furiously.

"That way a little, Mr. Mongo!" she shouted back, pointing a few more degrees to the right. "Please don't let him catch us! I'm scared!"

Me too. Escaping from Tanker Thompson had become a moot point. He was definitely going to catch us-or at least me; I was resigned to the fact that I was a dead man, even though I didn't much care for the idea. The only question that remained was whether I was going to be able to wreck the transmitter before Tanker Thompson wrecked me.

And I had to find a way to save Vicky Brown. The child Garth and I had pledged to help must not die.

"Vicky! Is there a way to get out of Eden on the other side?!"

"No, Mr. Mongo!"

Pull! Pull! Pull!

"How do you get out?!"

"There's a door back there behind the church! But it's locked to keep the demons out!"

Pull! Pull! Pull!

"Vicky!" Pull! Pull! "The moment we reach the shore, you must jump out and run away just as fast as you can! Don't look back! Just run! Run into the jungle and hide! Try to get as close to the wall as you can and curl up into a ball! Bombs are going to be falling on this place, but you'll be all right if you stay close to the wall! Then nice men will come and find you! Do you understand?!"

"What about my mommy and daddy?!"

I tried to think of something reassuring to say to the little girl, but I had no more lies left in me, and precious little wind. "I hope they'll be all right, too. By now, your mommy and daddy will be with the others."

"But they could be hurt by the bombs."

"I'm. . sorry, Vicky."

The girl began to cry, but I could think of nothing else to say. The fire that had started in my belly was now blazing in my arms and thighs, and I noted with alarm that it was burning away much of my remaining strength and resolve. There was a terrible temptation simply to stop paddling, lean forward, and wait for Tanker Thompson to come up and split my head open. I wondered if my heart would rupture when the fire in me reached it, but I tried to put that thought out of my mind.