Blood Harvest Read online

  There was always a stickie involved.

  She watched in revolted fascination as through some form of stickie contortionism one individual had wormed a spindly arm through the gap between the wall and the jammed door. Mildred recoiled in disgust as the suckered, spatulate, fish-white hand opened and beckoned toward her as if in invitation. Suckers opened and closed in obscene, sphincterlike lust for her flesh. The huge, flat, black eye pressed to the opening never blinked or wavered as the stickie slowly squirmed itself against the gap. The stickie’s shoulder suddenly popped like a gunshot. Mildred yelped and leaped back as six more inches of arm shot toward her face like a striking snake.

  Mildred folded her arms across her chest and jerked her head at Jak. “Jak! I’m not going to waste brass on his pasty ass!”

  Jak rose and quietly palmed one of his leaf-bladed throwing knives.

  Mildred shook her head in disgust as the dislocated arm wormed around the inside of the door. The hand crawled about like a spider as it searched for some kind of egress. Suckered toes began curling around the bottom of the door like caterpillars dragging a flattened, distended foot and then a horribly turning ankle through the gap. Up higher the stickie’s clavicle stood out like drumstick as it began to push its dislocated shoulder through the opening.

  Jak’s ruby eyes narrowed curiously at the tiny gap in door and the gourd-shaped skull pressing against it “Head?”

  “I have no idea but—” Mildred’s eyes flared as the stickie pushed its face against the gap in answer. “No…fucking…way.”

  The stickie’s jaw unhinged with a pop. Needle teeth scraped against the steel door as the creature literally began dragging its distended lower jaw through by its tongue.

  “Uh-uh.” Mildred watched in mounting moral outrage. “No.”

  The stickie’s cheek pressed against the door and the huge black eye began to bulge out of its socket through the gap. Mildred put her fists on her hips. “Oh, hell, no.” Mildred pointed a condemning finger at the self-compressing mutation. “Jak?”

  Jak’s knife glittered through the air. The bulging black eye popped like a cyst as the blade passed through and sank into brain. The albino teen lunged and retrieved his blade as the mutie sagged. The stickies outside hooted and cooed. The dead stickie left far more violently than it had tried to enter. Its bones snapped and cracked as its brethren yanked its body back through the gap and fell upon it in a feeding frenzy.

  Mildred whirled and waved her arms at no one in particular. “You see that? You see that? Little bastards are doing yoga now!”

  No one in the room knew what yoga was. J.B. hadn’t liked what he’d seen, either. He’d never seen a stickie pull a circus stunt quite like that before. “Jak, keep an eye on the door. If one can do it, then mebbe another can, too. We don’t want them oozing in while we’re asleep.”

  Jak nodded and squatted on his heels in front of the portal. He began walking a throwing knife across his fingers like a coin trick as fresh, rubbery white hands began wiggling, pulling and probing at the door.

  It was going to be a long night.

  RYAN SLOGGED ASHORE, dragging Doc’s limp, coughing body with him. The felucca had broken up on the rocks between the gateway crag and the islands. He had seized a piece of wreckage in one arm and held Doc in a death grip with the other as the wind and waves had had their way with them for an hour before depositing them on the beach. Ryan gazed at the empty rolling dunes. He and Doc were on the wrong island, and his snapped rib ached like fire. He hauled Doc a few feet above the tide line and dropped him exhaustedly to the sand. Ryan was cold down to the bone and soaked through, but his mouth was nothing but dry salt. He took out his canteen and took long slow gulps from it before bringing it down to Doc’s lips. The old man sucked at the canteen in semiconscious greed. Ryan let him drink his fill. They’d seen campfire smoke. Where there was campfire smoke, there’d be water. “You all right?”

  Doc flopped back to the sand like a fish. “A bit battered, but I must say battling the ocean was strangely invigorating.”

  Doc didn’t look anything remotely invigorated. He looked more like a dog left out in the rain to—“Dog!” Ryan’s hand was numb with cold and ached with the hooking from Captain Roque’s gaff, but his blaster was in his hand rattlesnake quick.

  He blinked as a dog stood atop the dune and wagged its tail at him.

  During the time of the skydark the family dog had become an immediate source of food. Packs of wild strays that had taken to eating their former human masters had been ruthlessly trapped, shot and eaten in return. Ryan had seen pictures of predark house pets, and the idea of people keeping animals that couldn’t earn their keep, much less deliberately breeding so many useless mutations into an animal was beyond his comprehension. For the most part only dogs of the working, sporting and herding groups had survived into the age of the Deathlands. Whatever working specialty a dog might have, whether hunting, herding or hauling, their primary function was still guarding. They were both alarms and the first line of defense against mutant marauder and night-creeping norm alike. Most had been bred up in size and savagery, and all were trained to attack strangers on sight. This dog was a shaggy black color with a mop of hair falling over its eyes. At fifty pounds it was a bit runty by Deathlands standards but still had good lines. The strangest thing about the dog was its attitude. It gazed upon Ryan and Doc in tail-wagging, tongue-lolling, happy stupid expectancy.

  Doc creakily pushed himself to his feet. “Cao da Serra de Aires.”

  Ryan kept his 9 mm blaster leveled. “What?”

  “An Aires Mountain Dog. A shepherd dog from the Aires Mountains, north of the Tagus River.” Doc nodded knowingly. “A Portuguese breed.”

  “So why isn’t it trying to chill us?” Ryan shook his head in mild disgust at the happy dog. “It’s not even barking.”

  “I suspect it does not regard humans as enemies.”

  Rustling was alive and well in the Deathlands, and a herd dog that didn’t bark at strangers struck Ryan about as useful as bird shit on pump handle. He looked up at the sound of bells. The bleating sounds carried over the sound of the surf. A girl came over a dune being followed by a flock of snowy-white goats. The girl stopped at the sight of the two strangers, then shocked both Ryan and Doc by waving happily at them. Ryan observed her as she and her herd waded through the waist-high beach grass. She had long, unbound golden-brown hair, golden-brown tanned skin and golden-brown eyes. The effect was made more dramatic by the simple, chestnut-colored homespun shift she wore. Leather sandals shod her feet, and she wore a simple leather purse over one shoulder and a bota bag over the other. Ryan noted the corpse on the escarpment had been wearing the same outfit and kept his eye on the shepherd’s crook she carried. Looks were deceiving and he had been on both ends of a skillfully wielded piece of wood.

  The girl approached them guilelessly. Up close her slim arms and legs belied a chest that strained at the homespun enclosing it. She smiled with big white teeth and in every way was the healthiest specimen Ryan or Doc had seen in quite some time. Doc nodded in a friendly fashion at the dog. “Cao da Serra de Aires?”

  “No…” The girl’s nose wrinkled delightfully. “Boo.”

  Ryan regarded Doc dryly. “I think the dog’s name is Boo, Doc.”

  “Hmm…yes.” Doc scratched his chin. “Boo.”

  Boo thumped his tail in the sand at Doc. The girl beamed and pointed to herself. “Vava!”

  “Vava!” Doc bowed. “Dr. Theophilus Algernon Tanner, at your…” Doc trailed off as the girl stared at him blankly. He sighed and smiled as he pointed at Ryan and himself. “Ryan…Doc.”

  The girl’s smile spread across her face like the sun. “Rian…Doke.”

  “Doc?” Ryan shot the old man a look. “The dog doesn’t bark and the girl likes strangers.”

  “I must admit it is unusual,” Doc agreed. “Even in my time a lone shepherd girl and her dog would be wary of strange men. Clearly neither has been exposed t
o any sort of predation.”

  “Or it’s some sort of trap. I’m thinking—” Ryan wasn’t often shocked but even he was taken aback when the girl softly wrapped her hands around his. She ignored the blaster he held and raised the gaff wound to her lips and kissed it. The huge golden-brown eyes gazed upward at Ryan with an innocence that bordered on the erotic as she said something soothing in her own language.

  Doc gave Ryan a wry look of his own. “All better?”

  “Uh, yeah…” Ryan forced a smile onto his face. “Doc? You tell her to take her hand off my blaster or—”

  The girl tossed her crook to the sand. “Boo!”

  Boo picked up the stick and happily trotted off. The girl kept Ryan’s hand in one of hers and took Doc’s hand in her other. Ryan and Doc exchanged looks. “Doc?”

  “Like lambs to the slaughter?” Doc suggested.

  Vava gave their hands a slightly impatient tug. “Dunno,” Ryan said. He had learned the hard way to read a trap. The girl gave off nothing but wide-eyed goodwill. Boo the dog was positively anomalous. Then again, in the very best traps the bait had no idea it was bait. Circumstances decided it. They couldn’t stay here, and goats implied a hot meal. Ryan sighed and put his blaster in his other hand. He was almost equal with both. “Doc, give her your left.”

  “What?”

  “Give her your left hand. Keep your right on your blaster.”

  “Ah, yes. I see.” Vava smiled happily as the hand- and blaster-holding was arranged and led them into the dunes. The goats followed with their tin bells tinkling. Ryan surveyed the countryside. The dunes gave way to rolling grassland, rock formations and thin, windswept forest between the hills. The island wasn’t a tropical paradise but everything was a healthy green and the needle on Ryan’s rad counter never moved as they walked. Golden-brown fields waved in the sea breeze and he spied a few thatched huts on top of some of the hills. Several times people in the distance waved at them. They cut through a field and Doc ran his hand through the heavy sprays of grain.

  “Pearl millet. Wheat, rice and corn overshadowed millet in the Americas except as feed for livestock, but in Africa, India and Asia millet has been a staple cereal grain since ancient times. It is a cereal grain well-adapted to soil low in fertility and high salinity.”

  “That’s real interesting, Doc,” Ryan said.

  Doc frowned. “I assure you sarcasm is uncalled-for.”

  “It’s not sarcasm.” Ryan tracked his eye across the breadth of the horizon. “This rocky soil isn’t bad, but it’s workable. These people are making the most of it, but I noticed one thing.”

  “Good heavens, you are right!” Doc saw it. “They are not fishing.”

  “That’s right. They’re growing grain, raising goats and wearing homespun, but I haven’t seen a boat, a pier or a net, and right across the water there’s a ville where they got buildings, sailboats and they’re eating octopus in sauce.”

  “It is a conundrum,” Doc admitted. “And our Vava is wearing the same clothing as the poor girl by the mat-trans.”

  “But Vava isn’t wearing a chron and I doubt she’s carrying a blaster.”

  “Indeed.”

  They came to a little valley. Sheltered from the omnipresent ocean wind the oaks grew tall rather than twisted and among them sat a little cluster of thatched huts. Ryan stopped just short of drooling as the smell of a goat roasting on a spit wafted toward him on the breeze. They descended the steep goat path and three young men around the barbecue pit rose to meet them. All wore homespun tunics and crude leather sandals like Vava and had the same tanned, golden-brown good looks. Vava and the man in front talked for a few moments. He was tall enough to look Ryan in the eye, looked as healthy as a horse and about as strong.

  Vava waved at him by way of introduction. “Ago.”

  Ryan remembered his meeting with Roque on the dock and spoke the only word of Portuguese he knew. “Olá, Ago.” He motioned at Doc and himself. “Ryan, Doc.”

  Vava beamed.

  If Ago had a tail he would have been wagging it with Boo. He grinned like an idiot instead and shoved out his hand. “Olá!” The other two men were introduced as Marco and Nando. Everyone shook hands all around. The afternoon sun was fading, and the islanders led Ryan and Doc to the fire. Others began gathering. Ryan counted a score of men and women in equal number. Most of the women had babies in their arms or small children clinging to the hems of their tunics giving Ryan and Doc wide-eyed looks. Slabs of goat meat and heaping bowls of millet gruel were shoved in front of Ryan and Doc without ceremony. Doc began picking at his food and making pleased noises. Ryan shoveled it down. He had burned off his two octopus arms hours ago, and he was ravenous. Vava told an involved story that Ryan gleaned was about her and Boo finding the visitors on the beach.

  Ago handed Ryan a large clay bowl with a grin.

  Ryan brought the clay bowl to his lips. The sloshing contents were a foamy, unfiltered dirty blond and the smell of yeast was almost overpowering beneath his nose. Ryan tossed a swallow back. It was carbonated to the point of being fizzy and tasted like a train wreck between hard cider, ale and the gruel. The assembled islanders gazed on expectantly. Ryan tilted the mixing-bowl-size container of home brew and drained it.

  The islanders clapped their hands happily.

  Ryan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The bowl was refilled and Doc smacked his lips as he took a sip. “Millet beer.”

  People filled their bellies and talk roamed about the common circle. All the shy glances pretty much indicated Ryan and Doc were the hot topic for the night. Ryan spoke quietly. “Doc, what’ve you learned?”

  “I believe these people live communally. I get the impression this is but one of a number of hamlets scattered across this island. These few here could not maintain the fields alone. The islanders probably all gather for group planting and harvest of the arable land. Everyone seems to have a knife. They are all crude and of a kind, but I have yet to see a forge.”

  “Trade knives.”

  “My thought exactly. I suspect any axes, plows or other ironworks will have come from across the strait.”

  It squared with everything Ryan had observed. “I haven’t seen any old people.”

  “Dear Lord!” Doc stared around in shock. “I believe you are right!”

  “Ask if they’ve seen any other strangers.”

  Doc spoke a few words and got blank looks. “I am afraid the Portuguese word for stranger has wandered far from the Latin.”

  “Talk around it,” Ryan said. “Use your hands.”

  “Ah.” Doc began speaking very slowly in Latin and gesturing at himself and Ryan and pointing out toward the sea and the island housing the mat-trans. Ago sat upright and for the first time lost his smile. The islanders around the fire began a rapid exchange.

  “Tell them we found a girl.”

  Doc nodded. “Very well.”

  “Tell them we found her on the escarpment and she was dressed like they are, but had dark hair, short, had something on her wrist.”

  Doc made a show of touching his hair, Vava’s clothes and circling his wrist with his hand as he spoke words in Latin. Vava suddenly got very excited.

  Ryan knew they were hitting pay dirt. “Tell them she’s dead.”

  Doc stopped. “Are you sure?”

  “Do it.”

  Doc said a few words. Vava burst into tears and ran from the circle. Everyone else grew very quiet. “Doc, ask what her name was.”

  Ago sighed unhappily at the question but answered. “Galina.”

  “That Portuguese?” Ryan asked.

  Doc shook his head. “No, it is a Russian corruption of the Greek name Helen.”

  Ryan wasn’t surprised. “Ask if Galina had friends.”

  Doc asked and Ago held up a single finger as he spoke, and that confirmed Ryan’s suspicions about the mat-trans. “I believe a man named Feydor, that’s Russian for Theodore,” Doc said.

  “A Russian team tried to jump
and the mat-trans here only let two through, just like us. Something happened and Galina and Feydor got separated. I’m thinking that something was the people on the other island.”

  “So deductive reasoning would dictate,” Doc agreed.

  “Ask them about the mat-trans.”

  Doc spent long moments doing some very elaborate pantomime. The islanders stared uncomprehendingly until he finally dropped his hands to his sides in defeat. “I cannot seem to communicate the concept, and frankly I do not believe these people know of mat-trans devices much less what they do.”

  Ryan agreed. “I think the folk in the ville do. They came quick as a bullet from a blaster when they saw our fire.”

  “Yes.” Doc nodded. “And they were willing to sail straight into a storm to retrieve us.”

  Vava returned with tears in her eyes and a basket laden with bundles of homespun and a collection of sandals, and began pushing them at her guests. Doc sighed sadly as he surveyed the garments. “I believe these good people want us to put on these clothes and try to blend in. I believe they intend to hide us.”

  “Didn’t keep that Russian girl from taking the last train west, and we can’t hide here forever.”

  “So, we journey across the strait and confront this Baron Barat?”

  “In our favor that felucca went down with all hands chilled in the storm. With luck he won’t know we’re coming. We’ll do a recce to get the lay of things and then decide how to play it,” Ryan decided.

  “And how are we to negotiate the strait?”

  Ryan glanced around. “I doubt these folk have much in the way of boats. We’ll have to build a raft.”

  Doc looked at Ryan steadily. “My friend, you are wounded.”

  “Yeah.” Ryan’s hand went unconsciously to his side. Vava instantly leaped up and her breath sucked in as she noted the rent material of Ryan’s coat. Ryan almost pushed her away but the hot fire, hot food and millet beer were beginning to have their way with his beaten, half-drowned exhausted body. Vava called to a girl named Eva and the two of them led Ryan to a hut. Doc followed as they sat Ryan on a straw pallet and began brewing things in a clay pot.