Baptism of Rage (18 page)

Working the brake, Ryan pulled his wag up to the imposing, wooden gate that waited in the high, concrete walls surrounding Babyville. There was a huge clock face to the side of the gates, high up in the wall and angled to catch the sun. The clock hands were still, stuck at 10:10 for slow eternity. Two other wags waited before him, engines idling as their occupants spoke to the sec men waiting in a sentry post beside the tall gate. The wag’s engine shuddered beneath him as Ryan scanned the top of the wall and the spaces around the gate, spotting more sec men.

Behind Ryan’s wag, the four other vehicles in the convoy drew to a halt, waiting in line to see what would happen next. Out across from the ville, people were working in the fields, tilling at the land, turning it into something good again. The trace of a smile crossed Ryan’s lips when he saw this. Young men and women were out there, some just kids, trying to reap some good from the poisoned land. Perhaps this was the future, he thought. Perhaps this was what was needed to make the world right again.

Beside him, Jeremiah Croxton was struggling to get up, clambering out of the bucket seat and working his way ungracefully down the short ladder that led down the side of the high wag.

“Need me to come with you?” Ryan asked him.

The old farmer nodded. “You’re my sec man, aren’t you?” he grunted.

Ryan slipped out of his seat and leaped down from the wag, landing on the soft earth that formed an erratic track to the proud gate of the ville. He reached up and pulled his Steyr rifle from its cubbyhole beneath the driver’s seat, slung it over his shoulder by the carrying strap. It wouldn’t be much use here, and if they ran into trouble Ryan would rely on the SIG-Sauer he wore at his hip, but he disliked leaving the powerful rifle untended in case it was lifted while his attention was elsewhere. As he pulled it from its storage place, Alec the young-again lad, came running up to them from his place in another wag, reminding them of what needed to be done. Krysty followed him, her hand held close to her holstered weapon.

“There’s a procedure,” Alec said. “They’ll want to check you out before you can enter.”

“You’ve done this before,” Ryan stated. “Anything special we ought to know?”

Alec shrugged. “Just be honest with them.”

Ryan thanked him and indicated that he was to stay in his wag for now. Alec ran back to Charles’s four-wheel drive, kicking up the dirt as he went. Krysty followed, slamming the door behind him and standing ready at the front of the idling wag.

Croxton walked over to the main entrance, his gait evincing a slight limp to the left as he walked.

“You okay, Croxton?” Ryan asked as he caught up with the man.

“Leg’s giving me trouble,” Croxton grumbled. “Sitting in that bone-shaking pile of crap too long.”

Agreeing, Ryan smiled. It was good to be on his feet once again.

Behind Ryan, in the line of wags, his companions were watching carefully to see what would happen next. In the rearmost wag, J.B. pushed through the canvas cover and dropped down to the ground, leaving Jak to cover the wag alone. As the Armorer walked past the next wag in the line, Daisy pushed forward and slipped from the back. J.B. gave her a fierce look. “I don’t need any backup, girl,” he said as he stalked past.

Mildred and Doc waited at the doors of the next wag, and Krysty the one after. J.B. gave them each the same instructions. “Wait, keep your eyes open, don’t get trigger-happy unless you need to.” It was just reassurance; the companions had worked together for long enough that they knew how to handle situations like this.

Up ahead, Ryan and Croxton made their way to the sentry booth and waited their turn. To Ryan’s surprise, an orderly line had formed there, each visitor waiting his turn under the watchful eyes of the sec men. Four sec guards—three men and one woman—stood watching the visitors, their expressions grim. Each was dressed in an armored vest over their clothes, and each held an automatic rifle in the at-ease position. Two more sec men—a man and a woman—stood inside the sentry post itself, looking over the visitors, interrogating them with practiced ease.

Standing beside Croxton outside the sentry post, Ryan watched the proceedings warily. The sec men looked healthy, strong, and none of them looked to be over twenty-five. Two looked like teenagers, the girl in the booth couldn’t have been much older than thirteen.

Babyville, Ryan thought, where the population keeps growing younger. For just a second, his hand tensed by the holster he wore at his hip.

The travelers in the booth were being ushered out by the sec men. They were an elderly couple, husband and wife most likely, and neither of them would see sixty again. Their old, wrinkled faces vividly showed their relief, and Ryan watched as the sec men gave their battered old wag the once-over before letting them drive through into the ville. The huge gate was winched open to let the wag through, and Ryan saw now that it had a portcullis shielding it as well as the sturdy gate itself. Both needed to be opened separately before anyone could gain entry into the ville, like an airlock.

That expression on the oldsters’ faces haunted Ryan’s thoughts. It said something. It said that they had found salvation, the promised land. Ryan wasn’t so sure.

The line shuffled forward under the watchful eye of the sec men, and Ryan took everything in as he and Croxton waited their turn.

The old man looked at Ryan, seeing the grim expression on the one-eyed man’s face. “You okay, son?” he asked.

Ryan nodded, saying nothing.

Croxton pressed the issue. “You look a little out of sorts, is all. If you don’t mind my saying.”

“I don’t mind,” Ryan said, his voice low. He didn’t look at the old farmer. His single eye was scanning the top of the high wall, searching for other sec men. The operation seemed heavily fortified, and Ryan would bet his last clip of ammo that there were more guards watch
ing them from hidden positions all around. The place was unnerving, disquieting. It was so well-fortified, in some ways it seemed like a prison.

“Lighten up,” Croxton urged Ryan in his rich, friendly voice. “We’re here now. The worst of it’s over.”

“The worst of it’s never over,” Ryan replied, still scanning the battlements above them. “You’re old enough to know that better than me.”

Croxton shook his head, laughing just a little, albeit uncomfortably. “Yeah, mebbe you’re right at that,” he admitted. “It’s a mad world and we all do what we got to to survive. Those folks we met back in Tazewell—they mebbe were just trying to survive, too.”

Ryan’s eye fixed on Croxton, and it seemed to skewer the old farmer as he tried to meet it. “You sound like a man with something on his conscience,” he said.

Croxton visibly flinched, swallowing hard and taking a half step back before he spoke. “They were nothing to do with me,” he said. “You can’t think for a moment…”

“I didn’t say that,” Ryan said. “But they were psychotic. They starved their kid, left her to die. There’s no excuse for that.”

Still uncomfortable, Croxton looked away, watching the people in the sentry booth as they discussed their needs and answered the sec men’s questions. Ryan continued to watch the man, his single, piercing eye fixed on Croxton’s shifting gaze.

A
LITTLE WAY DOWN
the dirt track road, Mildred leaned against the hood of Charles Torino’s four-wheel drive, watching the proceedings up ahead at the main gate.
Beside her, leaning on his ebony cane with the silver lion’s head, Doc watched the sentry booth with rapt attention.

“They’re going inside now,” the old man said, not turning from the scene.

Mildred peered across to him. He was a curious figure, strangely incongruous when placed beside the other companions in Ryan Cawdor’s group. An old man with an inquisitive, scientific mind, who, if his true nature were ever allowed to surface, most probably abhorred the violence that he saw all about him every day of his life. “How are you doing, Doc?” Mildred asked.

After a moment, he turned to her, bemused. “I’m sorry, my dear Dr. Wyeth?” he inquired.

Mildred smiled. “I know this means a lot to you, coming here,” she said. “I mean, I’m interested in the sense that I’m a medical professional—a scientist, like yourself. But you…you
need
this to happen, don’t you?”

“
Need
is a very strong word,” Doc responded. “What I need is in the hands of a higher power than you or I or the people of Babyville. What I want, on the other hand—well, that is still open to interpretation.” With that, he turned back and continued to watch the proceedings at the sentry booth.

“I hope it’s true, Doc,” Mildred told him. “I hope that you find what you’re looking for here.”

“And if I do find it,” Doc said, his eyes still on the sentry booth by the ville’s main gate, “do you suspect that would be the end of my quest? Or would it be just another step on the long road we all travel?”

Despite herself, Mildred felt her lips rise into a smile. “You sound like a fortune cookie,” she said.

Doc shook his head. “If I knew what that was,” he said, “I’m sure I’d be insulted.”

But Mildred could see that the old man was smiling, too.

F
INALLY,
R
YAN AND
Jeremiah were encouraged to enter the sentry booth. Within, the two sec men looked them over with open disdain.

The male was perhaps twenty years old, with dirty blond hair cropped close to his scalp. There were scabs in his hair, and his face showed acne scars. He stepped out from behind his desk and strode across the little booth, making it clear this was his domain, stopping before Ryan and the old farmer and looking from one to the other. Behind him, the female sec officer chewed on something as she watched, her hand resting on the butt of a blaster that was clipped to her belt. Her hair, like the young man’s, was a dirty blond color, but she wore it longer, so that it brushed her shoulders.

“Let’s hear it then,” the man said, sounding bored. “What have you heard and what do you want?”

Taller than either sec man, Ryan looked down at the lad before him, his face betraying no emotion.

“Well?” the young man prompted, looking from Ryan to Croxton.

“We’re here for the spring,” the old farmer finally said, a tremor in his voice. “The miracle spring we heard so much about.”

“This true?” the youth asked, placing his pointed index finger on Ryan’s chest.

Ryan nodded. “I’m just the sec man,” he explained.

The pumped-up, light-haired man turned to Croxton, waiting for confirmation.

Croxton nodded. “This man and his crew brought us here,” he said. “Kept us all alive.”

The young woman spoke up then, stepping out from behind the desk. “How many in your party?” she asked. To Ryan’s ears, her voice still sounded like that of a little girl.

“We have, um…” Croxton stuttered, trying to count the people in his head.

“Twenty-two,” Ryan said, “including six sec men and one baby.”

“Fifteen then,” the young woman said after a long pause of thought, clearly struggling to calculate the numbers in her head.

“Two of them have been here before,” Croxton stated.

The young woman nodded, smiling. “You have to hand over any weapons you’re carrying,” she explained. “We don’t allow blasters in Babyville.” Then she called to the sec men outside. “Check over their wags and let these fine people through the gate,” she instructed.

Ryan glanced back at the pair in the sentry booth before following Croxton to the wags, where the sec team was beginning their inspection. “What happens if we’d answered their questions wrong?” he asked.

“I guess it’s a screening process,” Croxton admitted. “Keep the bad folks out.”

Ryan wasn’t convinced. “Seems pointless,” he said. “I could have broken that little twerp’s hand in a second when he shoved it at me like that.”

Croxton smiled. “That mightn’t have endeared us to them.”

“Mebbe not,” Ryan agreed.

They walked past a waiting wag and to the converted harvester that Ryan had driven here from the Tazewell farmhouse, the three sec men keeping pace with them. Croxton took charge, showing the sec men the battered wag and pointing to the other wags in their convoy, leading them to the next in line.

As Croxton led the sec men to the moonshine-powered truck rig, Ryan’s attention was distracted by a noise coming from the wag waiting by the gates. He watched as a mean-faced sec man grabbed the driver—a gray-haired man in his fifties—from behind the steering column of a patched-together VW Bug and tossed him to the ground. Up ahead, the main gate had been raised, but the portcullis that covered it was still in place. As Ryan watched, another sec man, this one a young woman, maybe eighteen years old, rushed over and, to Ryan’s surprise, kicked the driver in the ribs as he lay in the dirt. She leaned down and punched the man in the face with a gloved hand, knocking his head hard into the ground as he struggled to get away. Then, the male sec officer reached down and pulled a stub-nosed revolver, a Brazilian rip-off of a Smith & Wesson, from the man’s belt.

The woman stopped pounding on the gray-haired man then, standing back as he lay before her. Then, the sec man turned the blaster on the man, pulling the trigger twice, firing two successive bullets close to the man’s head. The gray-haired man rolled this way and that in the dirt, trying to fend off the shots as they tore up the soil beside him. From the back of the VW Bug
came screaming, two voices howling to make it stop. Emotionless, the sec man ignored them, holding the blaster on the man in the dirt, barking instructions.

“You were told to hand over all blasters,” the sec man growled angrily.

The gray-haired man held up his hands in defense, and the sec team stood there, listening to his pleas. There was a brief negotiation, and the man pulled off his wristwatch and handed it to the first man. The sec man shoved the shining watch in his pocket along with the blaster. After that, they shot him in the head, leaving him to die where he lay. Terrified, one of the passengers took over the driving, starting the rumbling, shuddering engine and drove the Bug through the gate as the portcullis was raised. In the back, Ryan saw a child of perhaps ten years old along with an elderly woman. Heck of a family outing, he thought with grim humor.