James Axler - Labyrinth

As Ryan ran, he kept his eye on the flock of buzzards, watching them slowly descend from altitude, then spiral down into the canyon, out of sight. He marked the spot ahead where they disappeared. There was no more gunfire. The shooter was either out of ammo, or out of luck.

It took five minutes to close the gap. The canyon beside them had grown much wider, if not deeper. It was impossible to miss the vultures against the beige of the dirt and rock—black feathers, seven-foot wingspans, angry red heads. A mob of them, fighting over the spoils. Ryan flipped up the lens covers on his telescopic sight and scanned the crude campsite. He counted four sets of human legs half-hidden under the flapping wings and snapping beaks. Legs that were kicking, shuddering amid the frenzy.

“All dead?” Mildred asked.

“Let’s find out,” Ryan said. He tucked the Steyr tight to his shoulder and squeezed off a 7.62 mm round.

The bolt gun bucked hard and downrange, a lone buzzard exploded in a puff of blood and dark feathers. As the loose bag of bones tumbled to the ground, the other birds abandoned their feeding positions. Squawking, flapping, they hopped to the safety of nearby rocks.

Ryan surveyed the now-still human forms through the scope, then said, “Yep, they’re all dead.”

“Shooter must’ve taken off,” J.B. said.

“Can’t tell from up here,” Ryan said. He handed the Steyr to his friend. “Jak and me are going to go have a look-see. Watch our backs.”

They found and followed a narrow chimney of rock that led to the canyon floor and the gruesome campsite. Four of the bodies were clustered together; the fifth lay a short distance away.

“Been dead awhile,” Jak remarked of the four.

Because of the heat, it was hard to say how long. The torsos and limbs were swollen up like balloons with the gases of decay. Two of the bodies that lay on their backs had actually burst open, exposing sun-shriveled, sun-blackened guts. The buzzards had stripped the flesh from all four of the faces. Red, eyeless skulls poked out from fringes of hair and sagging skin. It was impossible to tell what they’d died from.

With no hint of breeze to shift the overpowering stench, it took a supreme effort of will not to turn away. That stink had ridden the canyon thermals, soaring high, spreading far and wide, attracting carrion feeders for hundreds of miles.

As Ryan and Jak moved to look at the fifth body, the big birds shifted their perches on the surrounding boulders. Brooding, watching, wary, waiting their chance to resume the feast.

“This one’s fresh,” Jak said.

The last dead man lay on his side in the dirt. So far he had been left alone by the vultures. They preferred their meat aged to the point of liquefaction.

It was the shooter, no doubt about it.

Ryan picked up the shotgun. It was a single shot, top break, 12-gauge with an exposed hammer. Cheap, long-barreled gun. Mass produced in the hundreds of thousands in the century before Armageddon. He tried the break lever; it moved, but the breech wouldn’t open because it had been crudely welded shut. Somebody had converted the weapon from centerfire to black-powder muzzleloader. Not an unusual modification in Deathlands, where black powder was easier to find than cased ammunition. Ryan sniffed the barrel. It had been recently fired.

With devastating effect.

The dead man had put muzzle under his chin and then depressed the trigger. There was a stick on the ground beside his hand. He might have used it to get the necessary extra reach. His head was a mass of powder-scorched ruination. The front of his face gone from chin to midcranium, his brain pan emptied. The hollow glistened.

Ryan and Jak did a quick survey of the gear that lay scattered around the site. They found a few meager valuables. Battered black-powder weapons, skinning knives sharpened down to slivers, cooking utensils, empty canvas packs. The bodies hadn’t been stripped of clothing and boots. There was the remains of a firepit, but no food scraps among the ashes. No food, period. Of course, they could’ve eaten it all before they got this far.

The one-eyed man scratched the black stubble on his chin. What’s missing? he asked himself. The answer came to him at once. Canteens. There were no containers, nothing to hold water.

“Something triple ugly happened here,” Ryan said. “No one tries to cross the desert without something to carry water in.”

“Footprints go that way,” Jak said, pointing in the direction of the dam. “One set. Big feet. Deep marks. Short steps. Heavy load.”

Ryan nodded. “Blackheart son of a bitch took all their water and ran. They chased him until they dropped.”

Jak knelt over the footprints in the powdery dust. The wind had eroded them. “Two, maybe three days old,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean he’s got a full, three-day lead on us,” Ryan said. “The load he’s carrying had to have slowed him down. He probably stopped to rest, figuring these fools were done for.”

“Catch chiller, take water,” Jak said.

Ryan nodded.

The albino didn’t have to add, “Leave the thieving bastard to die.” That was a given. Rough justice was the only justice in Deathlands.

The dead men’s gear wasn’t worth the trouble to lug it away. Ryan and Jak took the time to drag the suicide over to a nearby undercut in the dry river bank. They rolled him into the shallow notch, then kicked the soil down on top of him. They didn’t try to move the other bodies. The corpses would have just fallen apart, and there was always the chance of contagion from rotting flesh.

As Ryan and Jak started back up the rock chimney, the shrieking and squabbling of the vultures resumed.

The extinguished torch dropped from Ewald Starr’s shock-stiffened fingers. Pain squeezed him like a giant fist, making every muscle bulge, every sinew strain to the snapping point.

Unmasterable pain.

As he screamed and hopped in the dancing half light, a torrent of humid air poured from the gash, driven forth by whatever was coming. The scent that rode that evil wind triggered something deep in his brain, something primal. An unfamiliar taste, metallic and sour, flooded his mouth. The taste of panic. And of imminent, crushing defeat.

Worse suffering was on its way.

Much, much worse.

Ewald shoved Tolliver and his lit torch ahead of him. “Go!” he shrieked. “Go!!”

The direction didn’t matter. To stand still was to die.

The four of them raced away, running blindly into the black maw of the corridor. Dunbar couldn’t maintain the pace for more than a few yards before falling behind. Bringing up the rear, with nothing between him and whatever it was, his grunting turned frantic.

Ewald, Tolliver and Willjay didn’t look back.

When the clicking started again, rattling down the hallway after them, a distant, desperate Dunbar cried out, “Help me! Help me!”

They didn’t stop; in fact, they somehow found the strength to run faster. And Ewald wasn’t the only one praying for it to take Dunbar. To take him and choke.

A cowardly prayer, promptly answered.

Dunbar’s screech lasted only a second before it cut off. The clicking quadruple-timed, doubled that, doubled it again, climbing in volume and pitch, a triumphant roar that ended a horrible crescendo of wretching.

Ewald knew there was no guarantee that the thing would be satisfied with Dunbar, that it wouldn’t pursue and chill them one by one. Like the stairwell, the hallway was a kill zone; they had to get out of it, and quick. Over Tolliver’s right shoulder, Ewald saw a double doorway. “In there!” he cried.

They burst through the heavy metal doors and onto a short concrete landing that overlooked a room so broad and so cavernous they couldn’t see the far side of it. Overhead, the undersides of steel I-beam trusses and buttresses were dimly visible. The network of their upper surfaces and the ceiling were beyond the reach of torch light. Smell of death was like a sledgehammer pounding inside Ewald’s head.