Eden’s Twilight Read online

  “How’s it coming?” Ryan asked, washing the sticky pine sap off his hands with a rag dipped in fuel.

  “Okay, I have plotted us a course parallel to the way described in the journal,” J.B. said, tucking a pencil behind his ear. “We’ll have a rougher ride in these damn hills. West Virginians must have been part mountain goat even before skydark, but with luck we might just slip right past Pete without him even knowing we’re here.”

  “Sounds good,” Ryan said, tossing away the rag, then cleaning his skin with a moist towelette from an MRE food pack. The one-eyed man had once seen a green sec man trigger a blaster with gasoline on his hands. The resulting explosion of flames and flesh was not something Ryan would ever forget, or risk happening to himself.

  “How can you be sure?” Mildred asked.

  “Easy. Most of this region is exactly the same on the map,” the Armorer replied. “I don’t think any nukes fell around here. Just a lot of tumbledown and acid rain.”

  “Plus, the winter.”

  “Yeah, the long dark night. That must have been a triple bitch to live through.”

  “Did you find Cascade?” Ryan asked, looking over the predark map.

  “No, there’s nothing here with that name, or even anything close,” J.B. replied testily, folding the map before tucking it safely away once more. “And that kind of worries me some. If the locals changed the name of the place, then they’re trying to hide their location.”

  “But then why send out folks to contact traders?” Jak asked suspiciously.

  “Only one way to find out,” Ryan said, drying his hands on his shirt. “Let’s go ask them.”

  Dragging some branches behind the wag to try to erase their tire tracks, the companions started across the pine barrens to eventually reach a proper forest of dogwood, weeping willows and huge oak trees, the branches so intertwined the dim sunlight could only dapple the rocky ground, the tiny streams of light creating the classic cathedral effect.

  Trying to keep out of sight, Ryan stayed amid the trees whenever possible. Occasionally he would find the rutted remains of an old logging road, but every time, it became clogged with poplar trees, which was suspicious to say the least. The only plant that grew faster than poplar was bamboo, and it almost seemed as if somebody had deliberately planted the trees to seal off the steep mountain trails.

  Fording a river, Ryan was not worried when the currents rose high around the UCV, cresting the windows until the companions could actually see fish swimming by underwater. Vastly amused, Mildred felt like a kid at an aquarium again, watching the schools of trout and colorful minnows darting about the waving strands of kelp, broken chunks of concrete and the oddly shiny remains of supermarket shopping carts.

  As the wag trundled out of the river, Ryan drove it into the deep woods, following bear paths and dried creeks whenever possible. When not, he simply plowed through the bushes and thickets, hoping the wag was not making so much noise that they would get noticed. This was to be a nightcreep in broad daylight, and everything seemed to be against them.

  The land steadily became steeper, the rocks soon becoming boulders larger than the UCV. Several times, the companions had to use the winch to clear away fallen trees, and then once to haul the vehicle itself up a rocky slope to reach a section of paved roadway that otherwise would have been impossible to achieve.

  Now making excellent time, the companions drove on through the day and into the night, using only the bright moonlight to follow the snaking roadway. It was around midnight when Jak cried out and pointed to their left. Down at the bottom of the valley, the headlights of a motorized convoy were moving through the darkness, and they faintly heard the prolonged whistle of a steam engine releasing excess pressure.

  “Steam trucks. Bigger than hell, but slower than drek,” J.B. said from behind the wheel. “Oh, they got some good points, but I prefer a nice, quiet diesel better.”

  “Quiet?” Mildred asked, then she relented. “Well, relatively so, I guess. At least they’re less noisy than a damn locomotive!”

  “Better keep a sharp watch for scouts and outriders,” Ryan warned. “Pete’s not a fool.”

  “More’s the pity,” Doc rejoined, running a whetstone along the edge of his Spanish sword.

  Continuing onward, J.B. stopped around dawn to give the wheel to Doc, who then exchanged seats with Mildred at noon. The companions took a short break after lunch to use the bushes, then to refuel the wag with the last of the spare juice. Moments later, they were on the move, continuing straight on through the day, piling on the miles.

  Night had fallen again when Ryan got behind the wheel again. The UCV went around a curve in the old road and a wide valley came into view. Bathed in the waning light of the moon, this might have been farmland long ago, the hundreds of acres covered with a smooth expanse of dark clover. Ryan knew that was something farmers used in the autumn to enrich the soil and make it ready for planting crops in the spring. Except that there was no sign of a farmhouse, a silo, barn or any other type of building or structure, much less an entire ville.

  Parking on a relatively smooth patch of pavement, Ryan let the main engine idle softly as he rested both arms on top of the steering wheel, and looked down at the sea of green below.

  “Okay, where’s Cascade?” Ryan asked, squinting. His navy telescope was in a pocket of his coat, but there was nothing in sight to point the longeye at. Just those wide fields of clover.

  “John, are you sure of the directions?” Mildred asked pointedly, brushing back her beaded plaits. “Maybe we took a left past that river, when we should have gone right?”

  “Of course I’m sure! That valley is supposed to be the town of Cascade,” J.B. insisted, pulling out his map. “Want to check my figures?”

  “No, we trust you,” Krysty said, chewing a lip. “The journal must be wrong for some reason. Mebbe the explorer just wanted to hide the location of his home until he was sure a trader was coming, and not an army of coldhearts.”

  “Now got both,” Jak retorted with a scowl.

  Opening a window, Doc let in the cool night air, along with the smell of the clover and pine trees. The valley was beautiful, yet there also seemed to be an ominous presence covering the landscape, an unnerving feeling that something was terribly wrong, but it remained unseen in the shadows, around a dark corner, standing directly nearby. Annoyed, the time traveler shook off the sensation of being watched. It was just a touch of paranoia. After being in so many battles, Doc was beginning to assume that another fight was always around the bend. For a brief moment, he longed for the peace and quiet of his little home in Vermont, then set his resolve to the task at hand. The path to hearth and home led through the fiery heart of the Deathlands.

  The engine turned off, silence filled the urban combat vehicle for the first time in days.

  “Okay, something is definitely wrong here, so we’d better do a recce,” Ryan decided. “J.B., got those traps ready?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Good. We leave the UCV here, and I want it well protected. If somebody is expecting wags, then we go in on foot. Standard two-on-two defensive formation. Krysty and I are on point.”

  Leaving the disguised war wag where it was parked, the companions got ready, then proceeded carefully down the sloping sides of the valley, traveling along the natural path of winter runoff water and rockslides. It was well past midnight before they reached the valley floor and began to move along the edge of the clover field, avoiding the thick plant growth purely on general principles. When you weren’t sure of a situation, you always assumed the worst. Nine times out of ten, that was what usually happened.

  At the far end of the valley, Ryan paused as a large black area came into view on the rocky slope, and he gradually became aware that it was actually a cave. Easing closer, Ryan and Krysty checked for traps or alarms, but there was only the bare stones. In the silvery moonlight, they seemed fluid, almost alive.

  Slipping into the cave, the companions waite
d for their sight to adjust to the dark, then were forced to have Mildred use her flashlight anyway, the powerful beam dimmed by a wad of cloth. The interior walls were roughly hewn, but with the unmistakable markings of explosives and machine tools. This was no crude passage made by hand.

  Advancing past a curve, Ryan softly cursed as he saw that the cave ended at a flat wall of stone. This was no tunnel through the mountains, but a deadhead, just an abandoned mine shaft that went nowhere.

  Then a section of the supposedly solid wall moved silently aside and a man stepped out wearing a pair of U.S. Army night-vision goggles and carrying a sleek black autoloader. The startled men stared at each for half of a heartbeat, then both raised their weapons. The SIG-Sauer roared first, and the stranger was thrown back against the wall with most of his throat gone. Gagging on the torrent of blood gushing from the hideous wound, the man dropped to his knees, hands at his throat to try to staunch the ghastly river of life, then he slumped and fell to the floor of the cave.

  Not trusting so easy a chill, Ryan put another 9 mm round into the man’s chest, and the stranger twitched, a derringer falling from a limp hand to clatter on the hard stone floor. The blaster was made of new steel and stamped with the name Cascade.

  Looking at the open doorway, Ryan debated conflicting courses of action. There were a million important questions to ask, and only one source of information. The decision made, he pointed at the other companions, issuing silent orders, then knelt to check the body while Doc and Mildred took defensive positions on either side of the open doorway. But aside from the goggles and the derringer, the man was carrying nothing except a ring of keys. With a grin of satisfaction, J.B. took the keys, and Krysty took the derringer, checking the .44 hollowpoint brass inside before tucking it into her cowboy boot.

  Going to the doorway, Ryan started to slip on the goggles, but paused for Mildred to click off her flashlight. Nodding his thanks, the one-eyed man donned the device, the strap still warm from its prior owner. As expected, the goggles were set to Starlite mode, the faint moonlight streaming into the tunnel illuminating the interior crystal clear, although everything was colored different shades of green.

  The door was expertly made, almost a perfect match to the surrounding rocks, and in passing it would have been undetectable. Assuming combat positions, Ryan took the lead with J.B. close behind, resting a hand on the big man’s shoulder for guidance. Everybody else did the same.

  There was only a narrow passage past the door, barely wide enough for a single person, and it meandered through the solid rock, abruptly ending at an iron gate. Ryan passed the goggles to J.B. and he checked for traps, disarming a claymore mine. In the tight confines of the passageway, the military explosive would have damn near blown all of them into vapor.

  As expected, the keys unlocked the gate and the companions probed deeper into the mountain, their every sense straining against the impenetrable blackness.

  Two more booby-trapped gates hindered their advance along the serpentine passage until J.B. entered a small grotto with three other corridors branching off in different directions. Checking his compass, the Armorer then switched the goggles to infrared, and easily spotted a warm handprint on the wall of the left corridor from a recent touch. He started that way, then cursed and swung up the Uzi, stopping himself at the last second from triggering the weapon. What the frag?

  Advancing curiously, J.B. probed at a bizarre jellylike creature clinging to the roof of the corridor. It was a flapjack, one of the most deadly muties in all of the Deathlands. Except that this one was made of plastic. Gingerly checking behind the fake, he found another claymore. Using pliers to neatly clip the arming wires and render the explosive charge inert, J.B. grunted in admiration. Anybody trying this tunnel would spot the mutie and instinctively fire, setting off the claymore. Smart. Almost too damn smart. Any more boobies like this, and the companions would have to leave.

  Starting forward even more slowly than before, J.B. discovered several more traps: a spring-loaded bear trap with the crushing steel jaws colored a dull reflectionless black, and a deadfall rigged to release tons of rocks that could have aced anything alive in the corridor and blocked it solid, offense and defense combined into a single lethal action.

  Turning a corner, J.B. found another locked iron gate, but beyond this one was a brick bunker, a narrow slit set at chest level, the vented barrel of the .50-caliber machine gun pointing his way. The Armorer paused at the sight and quickly checked his compass, but the needle stayed pointed toward north. His heart pounding wildly, he slowly tried the keys, attempting to make as little noise as possible. None of the keys on the ring worked this lock, so J.B. hauled out a lock pick and got it open in less than a minute.

  Oiling the hinges, just in case they had been deliberately overtightened to squeal, J.B. silently swung the gate aside and led his friends to the bunker. Peering through the blaster-slot, J.B. exhaled in relief at the sight of the empty interior. There was also a door set into the left wall.

  Going to that side of the bunker, he ran his fingertips along the rough brick for several minutes until locating the release button set high on the top course. Holding his breath, the Armorer pressed the button. There was a pause, then a dull click, and a section of the brickwork slid into the wall.

  Entering the bunker, J.B. passed the goggles around to let the others have a fast look at where they were. Aside from the machine gun, there were also a couple more pairs of night-vision goggles hanging from hooks set into the brick wall, as well as a wooden rack full of shotguns, boxes of ammo and a plastic milk crate full of grens. Ryan scowled at the proliferation of weaponry. The Fifty was more than enough firepower to stop an army of coldhearts from getting through the iron gate. All of the other weapons were completely unnecessary, the sort of thing an amateur would do in ignorance. Whoever built the bunker and tunnel had a lot of military hardware, but no damn combat experience at all. That was interesting.

  A metal door in the bunker lead to a stone wall and yet another iron gate. But beyond that was merely a dirt road cutting through a field of tall corn, the young stalks stretching for hundreds of yards into the night. In the far distance came the glow of electric lights from behind some kind of a high wall.

  As J.B. removed the goggles and stuffed them into his munitions bag, Ryan pulled out his navy longeye and extended it to the full length. Through the telescope, he could see that there were brick guard kiosks set at regular intervals along the top of the wall, the intervening space thick with coils of barbed wire suspended from glass knobs. Electrified? Damn.

  Standing uneasy in the moonlight, the companions could faintly hear sounds coming from the ville: excited voices, the cadence call of marching troops, raucous laughter, as well as the soft twang of an expertly played steel guitar. Mildred was shocked to recognize the voice as a country singer from her own time period. She could not recall the name, but she knew the tune well, a funny song about trucking, “Wolf Creek Pass.” Jerry Reed? Tom T. Hall? Hank Williams? No, those weren’t right, and for some odd reason she could not remember what the famous musician looked like, all that came to mind was some sort of a hat and a pair of sunglasses. With a shrug, Mildred dismissed the mystery as unimportant.

  Tucking away the telescope, Ryan pointed at the companions, telling them what to do, then advanced to the iron gate. It was closed with a heavy steel chain and a combination lock. While the others stood guard with their blasters at the ready, J.B. first checked the area with his compass, then cracked the lock and eased off the chain, laying it softly down in the nearby grass.

  “Welcome to Cascade,” J.B. whispered, pushing open the metal gate.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Holstering his blaster, Ryan pulled out the panga and knelt. Gingerly probing the earth with the blade, he was rewarded with the soft clink of steel on steel, and laid a spent brass on that spot to mark the location of the land mine. He would have left a clear zone around the gate to trick invaders into a false sense of s
ecurity, and then laid out a thick minefield.

  Forming a line behind the man, the others also got busy with their knives, and soon they reached the drainage ditch edging the cropland. Stepping over the shallow trench, Ryan relaxed with the thick tangle of roots under his boots. There could be no land mines here.

  Sheathing his panga, Ryan listened to the gentle rustle of the stalks and the distant strains of recorded music mixing with the muted voices of the guards on the wall. They were discussing what to do with the new harvest. That was puzzling to the man, as the corn was many months away from being ready to be gathered. Then he heard them comment on the new trucks, computers, laser cannon…and the many women.

  In a surge of uncontrollable rage, Ryan felt a red fury fill his mind as he realized the brutal truth. Fireblast, they were talking about jacking the trader. War Wag One was the harvest! The beautiful field of clover was just a lure to pull the trader in close, make him enter the tunnel, and…what? Would they collapse the entrance and seal him inside? Release poison gas? Flood it with water? Suddenly he understood that Yates was not a spy for Pete, but for Cascade. That was the only possible explanation for the stolen keys. Son of a bitch! Now the recce took on a pressing urgency. The companions had to know more, real fast, to try to save their comrades.

  “Jak, take the goggles,” Ryan said, pushing them over. “Go back to the UCV and use the radio. Try to warn Roberto that this place is a trap.”