James Axler - Vengeance Trail

He laughed, grandly amused at his own joke. His gales of laughter died slowly away as he realized his younger companion wasn’t laughing with him.

“Go ahead,” Matt demanded. “Git to the punchline.”

“That was the punchline, you triple-stupe nuke head!”

“Weren’t funny.”

“Well, did you at least get the point of the story?”

“There’s a point?”

Ben dropped an elbow to the bar and sank his face in his hand.

“Well, now, don’t go being unreasonable, Ben,” Matt whined. “You said it was a joke. You told me so. And a joke got no point. It’s supposed to be funny.” A light dawned dimly. “Except that joke weren’t funny.”

He looked questioningly at Ben. The older man just waved a world-weary hand.

“Lookit, the bitch is all done cooking. Can we do her now? Can we?” He licked his lips. “I wonder if she got red fur on her pussy. Do redheads have that? Red hair on their pussies?”

“We ain’t et yet, you damn fool.”

“I was going to make up a batch of nice biscuits,” Krysty said, “if you big, strong men can just hold on to your appetites a little longer. And wouldn’t you like something to drink while you’re waiting?” She nodded her head back toward a canteen sitting on the counter.

Ben nodded, picked it up, began to unscrew the top. Then he stopped. A cagey look came into his eye.

“You wouldn’t be trying to pull one on us, now would you, honey? Here. You take a drink first. Then we’ll know it’s safe.”

He tossed the canteen at her. Holding his eye, smiling seductively the while, she undid the lid and took a long draft. Then she put the lid back on and tossed the canteen back. He drank greedily and pitched it to Matt in turn.

“So what are two such handsome men doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Water ran down the side of Matt’s chin. He lowered the canteen and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “We’re. Uh, that is—”

“We’re deserters,” Ben said cheerfully.

“Deserters?” Krysty said. In her mouth the word sounded like a marvelous thing. Like a baron combined with an old-time movie star. But better. “Does that mean, like from an army?”

“Sure does,” Matt said proudly. “The Provisional United States Army!”

“Well, that’s what they call themselves,” Ben said. “They’re really just a bunch of coldhearts under command of the General. But they like to play like they’re an army.”

“That’s why we run,” Matt said. “Got tired of all the bullshit. Get out of bed when somebody else says. Haul our asses all over this sorry-ass desert rounding up limp-dick civilians to work on the line.”

“The line?” Krysty asked.

“Railroad line. Same one runs out back of this shithole.”

“See,” Ben said, “the General ain’t just any old asshole like one of your bug-heap barons. He’s got himself a train.”

“A train?” Krysty asked.

“A train. But not just any old rail wag. It’s an armored train.”

“MAGOG,” Matt said. “That’s what he calls it.”

“What’s that mean?” Krysty asked.

Ben shook his head. “Don’t mean nothin’. It’s just what the General calls it.”

“He found it,” Matt said, with something like pride. “Scavvied it out of some big ol’ underground bunker somewhere. All fulla weps and food and everything. It’s only the biggest, most powerful rail wag ever built. The General, he says it was built for something called the War on Drugs. Gonna be sent down to someplace called Columbus—”

“Colombia, nuke breath!”

“Colombia. Except the world blew up. Everybody knew about it got iced. But it was all protected and everything. In perfect shape when the General found it. And it runs off fusion batteries so it don’t never need to refuel. Got all the power a body’d ever want.”

“Sounds…impressive,” Krysty purred. “What’s this General doing with this train of his?”

“Says he’s trying to put America back together,” Ben said. “Don’t put much stock in that myself. I think he wants to be just another baron, but mebbe carve himself out a bigger empire.”

“Sounds like a pretty big job.”

Ben shrugged. “That’s another reason we run,” Matt said. “He been at it years, conquered himself a mess of little villes along the line, keep him supplied and shit. Still just like taking a piss in the ocean.” He had another drink. “I saw a ocean once.”

“Weren’t no ocean, stupe,” Ben said. “It was the Gu’f of Mex.”

“That’s a ocean. I couln’t see acrost it, anyway.”

“You mean this General can travel anywhere he wants in this armored rail wag?”

“Not exactly,” Ben said. “Lotta breaks in the line.”

“That’s why we was stuck out here in nowhere,” his partner said. “’Nother washout in the fucking line. Had to go round up a mess of dead-ass civilian stupes to fix it. Buncha bullshit.”

“Our scout wag busted an axle a few miles down the road from here,” Ben said. “We was basically out on our own at that point. So we decided what the hey, threw away our talkies and took off. Heard us a rumor from some of the workers there was a big old buncha coldhearts gathered out in the scrub somewheres ’round here. Fixin’ to hook up with ’em, give that a roll.”

“Man got to start to think about settlin’ down, puttin’ down some roots, build him a future,” Matt said. “Can’t spend your whole danged life rollin’ aimlessly along a old steel rail to nowhere.”

Ben nodded sagely. “General says he’s looking for something called the Great Redoubt. Supposed to be where the old guys stored up everything needed to put the whole country back together after the war. Even before the war, this was. Communications, supplies, weps—the works.”

“Crazy old nukesucker.”

“No shit. Like the boy says, man gets tired chasing after phantoms. Needs somethin’ more substantial. Something with meat on the bones.”

He cocked his head and looked at Krysty. “Speaking of meat on the bones, why’n’t you hurry up there, little mama? I’m getting a real appetite worked up myself now, and not just for that chow that’s smelling so good.”

“Well,” Krysty said slowly, “since you’ve been such good boys, and told me what I needed to know, it’s time you got what’s coming to you.”

She turned quickly, her right hand filled with her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson blaster. She was already squeezing the double-action trigger, timing the lengthy pull so that the hammer released just as the short barrel came to bear on Matt’s bangs. The gun roared, making a shocking racket for such a small weapon.

Automatically, Krysty stepped sideways left, away from Ben, in case he made a grab for her. He didn’t. But he was sharp and fairly quick; he was leaning forward and trying to reel up his longblaster by the strap.

She swung her right hand around, arm still straight, bringing her left hand up to wrap the fingers and brace her grip on the piece. She fired two shots, blinding fast, into his torso at a downward angle. His leaning motion carried him off the stool and hard onto the ancient cracked linoleum.

Krysty swung her blaster back toward Matt, in case he needed another dose of what he had coming. Then she noticed the old sign by the door, a square frame on a skinny metal post, its message Please Wait to Be Seated barely visible for the years of fading—and also Matt’s blood and brains, the color of the half-baked biscuits rising unattended in the pan, dripping down the front of it.

Almost at her feet, Ben groaned and stirred. She aimed her blaster down at him.

But he was no threat. One of her bullets had smashed through his lower jaw on its way down into his chest. It was still about half-attached, his breath bubbling like a well of gore from somewhere within the mess.