James Axler - Shatter Zone

“This nuking storm is never going to end,” Ryan Cawdor stated, staring angrily at the savage ocean.

Impulsively, the one-eyed man reached up to adjust the worn leather patch covering the ruin of his left eye. His own brother had taken the organ in a knife fight, and given him a long ugly scar on the right cheek to go with it. But Harvey was under the dirt now, while Ryan was still sucking air, and that was all that truly mattered. The ancient marks of violence on his face were merely two small memories among countless others decorating his hard, muscular body.

Ryan’s hand rested comfortably on the checkered grip of his SIG-Sauer autoloader safely secreted in a hip holster. A large panga in a curved sheath balanced the deadly weapon on his other hip, and a bolt-action longblaster with a telescopic sight was slung across his wide, muscular shoulder.

“Yeah, hell of a storm,” J. B. Dix agreed, lowering the brim of his fedora as if for a bit more protection.

A good foot shorter than his friend, John Barrymore Dix was wearing a mixture of predark clothing: U.S. Army boots, fatigue pants, OD T-shirt and a leather Air Force bomber jacket. His weapons shone like new, lovingly polished and oiled every night by the master armorer. An Uzi machine pistol was draped across his chest, an S&W M-4000 shotgun slung across his back. However, the munitions bag that carried his stash of plas and grens was hanging flat at his side. The canvas satchel was sadly empty, aside from a few loose rounds of brass and a couple of predark civie road flares of questionable service.

Standing in the access tunnel of the underground re doubt, the two men were safe from the touch of the deadly acid rain outside, yet they carefully watched as the chem-rich water fell like a yellow curtain across the mouth of the passageway. The acid rain was mixing with normal rain, orange clouds mixing with black in the violent sky overhead. They hoped it was a good sign for the future, that the acid rains were starting to fade away. But that didn’t lull them into a false sense of security. In less than a minute, the deadly yellow rain could strip a shrieking man of flesh down to his raw bones, in spite of being weakened by the presence of the clean water shower. Of course the strength of the acid rain depended on many factors, one of which was a person’s location in the Deathlands.

“Seen worse.” Ryan grunted, rubbing his smoothly shaved chin. “But not by much, that’s for sure.”

With all that useless water outside, the salty ocean and the acid rain, it had seemed amazing to the companions that the machinery of the redoubt had been still able to deliver all the crystal-clear water the companions wanted the previous night. Everything Ryan was wearing, predark combat boots, denim pants and matching shirt, were in the unusual state of being thoroughly clean. Even his heavy fur-lined coat had gone through the wash, the accumulated blood, mud and food stains purged by the gently chugging laundry machines down on the fifth level. The companions were showered and shaved, warm and clean, a rare treat for anybody these days, and everyone except Krysty Wroth had had his or her hair trimmed.

“I hear ya,” J.B. said, blinking at the tempest through his wire-rimmed glasses. “Dark night, remember that big wash in Tennessee? That was nothing compared to this mother of a storm!”

“And those ruins are so damn close,” Ryan muttered darkly, tensing as if about to take a step outside. But then he relaxed and frowned.

“Mebbe if we had an APC we could chance a run,” J.B. added, crossing his arms. “But I’d sure hate to be the first to try!”

Sullenly, Ryan grunted in agreement. Yeah, a man would have to be pretty damn desperate to risk going into the hellish downpour. Even this deep in the tunnel, the reek of the chem storm was thickly unpleasant. Only the cool breeze coming from the open door of the redoubt behind allowed them to stand this close to the reeking miasma of the rain.

Just then, a huge wave crashed on the rocky shoreline and lightning flashed again, the strident discharge briefly illuminating the area. In the blue light, just for a split tick, Ryan and J.B. could see the ruins of a predark city filling the eastern side of the island. Tall skyscrapers of glass and chrome were still standing downtown, apparently undamaged by the nuke war or the ravages of time. Five, six, some of them even ten stories tall! And scattered about the buildings could be seen the steady unblinking glow of electric lights. Powered by resilient nuke batteries, the old beacons were still giving a warning for airplanes that had ceased to exist a hundred winters earlier. There weren’t many of the lights, only a precious handful. But the beacons shone bright as hope in the tropical storm.

Hunching his shoulders, Ryan frowned. But there was something there even more important than the electric lights. Surrounding the buildings on every side was a thick forest of green trees, the oddly shaped leaves shiny-slick from the combination of rain and ocean spray. Leaves, trees…it was almost fragging unbelievable, given the acid rain and all.

Standing in the access tunnel near the somber men was a beautiful redheaded woman leaning against the brick wall of the passageway, her left arm moving steadily as she brushed her teeth. The long hair hanging to her shoulders flexed and stirred against the direction of the breeze coming from the redoubt as if the crimson filaments were endowed with an independent life force of their own.

“Think we’re still in Deathlands?” Krysty Wroth asked, once again dipping the toothbrush into an open box of baking soda.

Her cowboy boots shone with polish. She’d traded in her jumpsuit for denim pants and a crisp white shirt, found sealed in a plastic box. Around her waist was a police gunbelt supporting a .38 revolver, a deadly compact blaster that had seen many battles. But very few of the ammunition loops of the gunbelt held any live brass, mostly they were filled with spent cartridges waiting to be reloaded.

“Nuking hell, we could be anyplace,” Ryan answered gruffly. “No way of telling through this drek.” He paused at a peal of thunder, then added, “But it doesn’t resemble any area I’ve been to before.”

Folding back his collar, J.B. touched the minisextant hanging on a chain around his neck. “And without a clear view of the sun, there’s no way for me to get a reading. We might be in Europe or Brazil for all I know.”

“That memo we found on the trash bin mentioned the Virgin Islands,” Ryan reminded him, glancing sideways.

J.B. shrugged. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean this is them. Mebbe the guy was planning on going there when the world ended.”

With a dissatisfied grunt, Krysty went back to scrubbing her molars. Thankfully, the pain wasn’t too bad today. She had the beginning of a major cavity, and was fighting off the day when it would be necessary for Mildred to use pliers and yank the rotten tooth out by the roots.

How odd, death I can face, Krysty thought privately as she scrubbed diligently away. But not pain. Have I experienced so much that I am getting weak? Mother Gaia, help me, if that ever happens!

Suddenly the sound of boots rang on the concrete behind them, and the three companions turned to see a stocky black woman walk out of the redoubt.

“Aw, hell, still raining,” Mildred Wyeth said angrily, contorting her face into a dark scowl. “Damn it, we’re never going to get a sample of those trees!”

The short physician was dressed in Army fatigue pants, an officer’s white shirt and a loose denim jacket. Clipped to the front of her canvas web belt was a Czech ZKR target pistol, and draped over her shoulder was a canvas bag with the faded letters M*A*S*H on the side. The predark field surgery kit had never left her possession since she’d recently found it. The medicine was long gone, but the few surgical instruments it contained were beyond price.