Rage (15 page)

Again, aloud. “Got some Raine now.” He got back in the buggy and started once again toward Wellspring.

It didn’t take him long before he resumed his conversation with himself.

“Damn sun is hot.”

Dan had given him a hat with a big brim and a flap of material on the back. His hands, though, were exposed, and all he could hope was that whatever it was that helped his wound heal so quickly made him resistant to sunburn, too.

More words …

“C’mon, Wellspring. Pop up. Let me see you.”

Had to be real, right? Couldn’t be a made-up Oz? Fall asleep during the disaster and wake up in a fantastical land. Follow the yellow brick road.

Any wizards there?

He drove, letting his thoughts drift to the movie. The red shoes and the hidden magic they contained. The flying monkeys. They had given him nightmares as a kid. Real nasty monkeys that could
fly.

And the four of them on that hunt for Oz? Good buddies. Allied in their mission. Loyal, true.

Strong values there, he thought.

Watching out for each other.

Good stuff.

And though he was no singer—even on the most drunken of karaoke nights—Raine began, quietly …

“ ‘We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful—’ ”

As if in response, he heard a noise from behind. A sputtering cough from the engine.

“C’mon, wasn’t that bad. You’ve heard—”

The joke dying on his lips as his engine coughed again, now followed by a puff of smoke belched from the front.

And that one cough turned into more, until he felt the wheels halting, the drivetrain slipping. The engine clearly in trouble.

“Christ,” he said.

And he couldn’t do anything as the buggy jerked ahead a few more meters before the engine died and the vehicle rolled to a complete dead stop.

No manual. That was for sure. Not when you had a vehicle that had been cannibalized from a dozen other vehicles.

It was a massive Lego construction, with the only person who really knew how it all worked being the person who made it.

Raine bent over the engine.

The smoking had stopped, but the engine, when switched on, just produced more coughs.

Battery, he thought. They had to be using decades-old batteries, somehow their life prolonged. If he kept playing with the on/off switch, he’d be dead in the water.

Or the desert, as it were.

He had played with broken-down Humvees overseas. He knew the basics. But looking at this crazy quilt of belts and engine parts, with seemingly two carburetors and a handmade drivetrain—he was in way over his head.

He looked up.

Past midday.

He was losing time. And if sitting out here all day didn’t kill him, what the night brought certainly could.

He leaned closer. The drips from his brow fell like rain on the hot engine block.

He saw two rows of spark plugs. Again, they looked handmade.

No Delco plugs here. Refurbished, remade, whatever.

“Okay,” he said to himself. Another few drops of sweat. “Just take your time. It’s an automobile engine. How hard can it be to figure out how it works?”

First thing, he thought, find the fuel line.

Yeah, let’s begin with that.

Thankfully, the buggy did have a few tools in the back.

Nothing terribly useful except a tire iron, a screwdriver, and a chunky hammer better suited for driving two-inch nails into wood. But it was more than he thought he had.

Using the screwdriver, he was able to remove what appeared to be two fan belts. Did they both do the same thing? Why two? Then he saw the fuel line leading into the main engine, on its way up to the rows of handmade spark plugs.

If it was misfiring, it could be that the fuel line was clogged. Shouldn’t be too hard to get that off. Suck out some of the gas. Clear the line.

He wondered if this happened because the fuel they used wasn’t refined petroleum. That maybe it was some low-grade mixture, barely able to burn?

He also wondered if Dan knew that his trip to Wellspring itself could be a 50/50 proposition? Raine knew that staying at the settlement hadn’t been an option … so maybe facing death in the desert was the only way, as bad as it was.

He pushed that thought away.

“Stay focused,” he said.

He had worked on Humvees in the field, sure, but every engine was different. He reached down to the fuel line. It felt wet, slippery. A leak perhaps. Good. If he got that off, if
that
was the problem, he could get this thing going again.

For a moment he allowed no other possibilities, because this one at least gave him hope.

He heard a sound.

A voice.

Wasn’t me
, was his first thought.
I didn’t say anything. Not just now.

He looked up from his study of the engine. On the horizon, coming toward him and making a lot of noise, was
something.

Wavy, blurry images of something. Noises like words.

Like words …

But clearly not.

He put down the screwdriver. Because he knew he might need both hands free.

Raine ran back to the buggy’s interior. First he picked up the handgun. Stuck it under his belt. Then the rifle. For now, he let the shotgun stay in the back.

Could just be other travelers, he thought, immediately realizing how stupidly optimistic that was—and how this was
not
a world to be optimistic in.

All he could do was stand there and watch what was in the distance come closer, slowly clarifying into recognizable shapes.

Raine thinking:

Bandits.

Thinking:

Oh fuck.

But as he stood by his buggy, the sun baking him, it only took minutes for him to see that the figures racing toward him weren’t bandits at all.

FUCK.

T
hey had no vehicles.

Instead, they loped along, a great bunch of them, almost as if they could gallop. And as they did, they made sounds, grunts mostly, and barking noises. Every now and then Raine saw one tilt its head up and give out a howling shriek … seemingly to the blazing sun.

They were still too far away for him to make out details.

But though they had a basic human shape, he could see that their heads looked oversized, eyes way too big in deep-set skulls. Mouths constantly open, grunting. Their arms were extra long, nearly simian.

A line of mutants racing right at him.

Guns, he thought, do these things have guns? Could they shoot?

Because there had to be … how many? Ten … fifteen of
them? They were now spreading apart, fanning out into what appeared to be a tactic for them.

But a tactic for what? What did they want—the buggy, this dead buggy? The weapons?

As they came closer, though—to where he could see their mouths more clearly—he realized it wasn’t his possessions they were after.

No. These mutants had moved along on the food chain.

Their interest would only be for the lone stranger stranded in the desert. A gift from above. For them to enjoy.

Raine licked his lips.

Not ever taking his eyes off the line of mutants racing toward him, he reached back inside the buggy without looking. He found one of the water bottles. Brought it to his lips. A big gulp of water. Another. Then, eyes away from the horde for a moment, he put the cap on.

If I survive, I’ll need water.

It registered in his head that he had thought
if.

He brought the gun up.

Still out of range, all he could do was wait.

As he kept them in his sights, he knew there was no way he would have enough time to take them all out before they overwhelmed him. His guns just weren’t designed to take on this number of enemies at once.

And then he remembered.

The wingstick!
He turned his back on the line of mutants, their sounds an animal braying that filled the air. He went to the back and picked up the stick.

He had barely practiced with it.

But, again, at the rate the mutants were running, even if he
shot fast—even if he was amazingly accurate—there would be enough muties left alive to get to him.

And what? Rip me into pieces, most likely.

He looked at the stick. Loosum had done her best. It was up to him now.

He gave it a heft in his hand, remembering how to hold it. The stance. He saw the detonator switch, actually a two-switch system: throw one, then the other switch—and then give it a toss.

How good would he be in gauging how far away they were? Maybe he
was
better off with the rifle.

But no. Dan had mentioned that these things were hard to kill, and something about the way they came at him confirmed that these deformed creatures could probably take a lot of bullets.

He put down his rifle, feeling as if he had taken a step into some distant, ancient past—only a hundred years in the future.

He took the stance that Loosum had taught him. Wingstick behind him, held parallel with the ground. Sweat dripped in his eyes, stinging, making the attacking mutants turn blurry. He wiped it away as best he could.

“Okay, bastards,” he said, used to the sound of his own voice, glad of it. He flipped the two switches. “Here we fucking
go
 …”

And he threw it.

He watched the stick fly through the air in pinwheel fashion, and then—
God, too soon—it
started to arc around. In seconds it would shoot out its explosive charges.

“You get three … four throws … max,” Loosum had told him.

It curved what looked like three meters in front of the mutants.
Each arm of the wingstick shot off a low-grade explosive, enough to take a bunch of them out … if it had been better thrown.

In seconds the stick was winging its way back to him.

The mutants were closer. He’d get—at best—another throw or two if he was fast. He debated grabbing the rifle. Fight it out in a way that was comfortable to him.

The wingstick flew toward him. He reached up and caught it, those days being a wide receiver in Bay Ridge High School now seeming so incredibly valuable.

I wonder if they even have football now?
For some reason, the thought made him grin briefly.

He blinked and took the stance, getting ready for another throw—wishing that the mutants were much farther away, instead of now so near that he could make out the features of the individual monstrosities coming at him.

He threw the stick again.

Raine watched it fly this time as though the wingstick had a mind of its own … once free of his hands, it started its journey.

I could have used so much more practice.

But as he watched, he saw that because either the mutants raced closer or he had adjusted properly, the stick started to curve just before the line of attackers.

And he watched the explosions go off, shooting out from each arm.

Two of the mutants got torn apart by the blast, puffy red clouds erupting from places where their heads once were, those severed heads blown backward. The carnage was gruesome. And yet there was a more disturbing thing: their bodies, though headless, kept moving a few more feet before pitching forward.

Two other mutants got hit by the blasts. But despite massive
wounds on their sides—Raine could see the blood gushing out—they kept coming.

He looked up to see the wingstick flying back to him.

The line kept coming.

He had time for only one more throw. Then it would be down to guns.

Could he take enough out before it got to that?

He wasted no time resetting and throwing as soon as he caught the stick. His first two tosses had shown him better how to gauge distance. Now he aimed at the mutants to the left, unharmed by the first blasts.

Like goddamn bowling, he thought as he threw.

Need to pick up the spare …

The stick flew straight at the group to the left. They paid no attention to it, though they had to have seen its effect on their brother mutants.

Closer now, Raine could see what they had for weapons.

Jagged pieces of metal. Long blades that looked like chunks of steel sharpened into three-foot-long approximations of swords.

Like a butcher’s convention. If the butchers worked in hell.

The stick flew at them, then past them.

Shit, he thought, wasted shot. But no, it curved behind the mutants, and at the apex of the curve it exploded, and the blast blew three mutants forward, facedown into the sand.

None of them got up.

The stick flew back.

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, he thought.
Maybe one more shot, and I got a chance.

He caught the stick, his fingers latching onto the center. He had to hurry now, no time to take a look or think about distance. Had to get it out.

And too close—he’d have to make this a short throw. Right down the middle.

He took his last throw, but he didn’t wait to catch it.

Instead, he grabbed his rifle and—while waiting for the stick to curve around—rested the gun on the front of his buggy, next to the still nonfunctional engine. He barely set himself before he started shooting. Aiming right at their heads.

Had to have a brain, no matter what mutation had turned them into these creatures.

And as he shot, he saw the stick do its last curve and explode. A few of the mutants had pulled ahead, and they caught this last blast, great holes ripped into their midsections.

He kept firing with the rifle, sometimes catching one in the head, at other times a body shot that seemed to do little damage.

No question about it, they could take hits and keep coming …

He stopped his firing just a moment to see the wingstick fall to the ground a little ways past where he had originally thrown it. If he lived, it had made the difference.

Thanks, Loosum.

Now it was a last stand. In this desert, the buggy his fort. He kept firing, the line of mutants halved, and now they were close enough that he swore he could even smell them.