Child Of Slaughter. James Axler

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СКАЧАТЬ surface beneath him, like rock, and he could sense some kind of walls around him. “Hello? If this is the afterlife, I’m really not complaining, you know. Life in the Deathlands has rather worn thin, to be perfectly honest.” When he spoke, there was no echo; he could tell from the sound of his voice that he was in an enclosed space.

      And more than that, he was somewhere dank and damp. He could smell moisture in the air, feel a chill against his skin.

      But there was no draft of any kind, no air moving anywhere in that space, not even the faintest breeze.

      Wherever he was, it didn’t feel as if it was out in the open, which was odd, because that was exactly the last place he could remember being. Out in the open.

      Reaching down, Doc felt a cold, damp sheet of smooth stone. Bracing against it, he boosted himself up to a sitting position, instantly regretting it when his head collided with a rock-hard ceiling.

      “Ow!” He dropped back down, clutching his aching skull. “That hurt!”

      At that exact moment, Doc realized two things: one, he was still alive and, two, he was in an even smaller space than he’d expected.

      These two realizations generated a terrible thought, a possibility that was starting to seem increasingly likely. If he wasn’t out in the open, and he wasn’t dead…

      “Have I been buried alive?” The thought of it made involuntarily clench the pit of his stomach. Fear seized him, as cold and primitive as a stone ax or the plunging beak of an ancient carnivore.

      Had the ground opened up and swallowed him, then closed itself over him? Was he doomed to suffocate in this tiny, dark cell in the bowels of the earth?

      “Help! Somebody, help me!” As Doc cried out, he scrabbled with his fingers at the ceiling, instinctively trying to dig his way to freedom. But the ceiling was all rock, as unyielding as the stone surface on which he lay.

      Panting, Doc dropped his arms at his sides. “Help me!” Even as he shouted, he knew it was in vain. Even if Ryan and the others were directly overhead, they could never hear his wailing through a layer of rock. “Please help me!”

      Taking a deep breath of the chilly, damp air, he fought to get control of himself…and won, at least for the moment. He knew panic was never the answer. Calm thinking and resourcefulness were the only qualities that ever saved a person in the damnable Deathlands.

      “Perhaps my tools…” Doc reached into the folds of his frock coat, seeking the holster of his LeMat revolver, with no success. Next, he rolled onto his right side, searching the stone around him for the blaster or his ebony swordstick. He did the same on his left side, with the exact same result. He found a hard rock wall within arm’s reach, but no revolver and no swordstick.

      “I am bereft.” Slumping back on the stone, he sighed loudly. “Without a tool to effect my escape or another mortal soul to offer solace.”

      Just then, Doc heard a scuffling sound in the direction of his feet. “What now?” He pushed himself up on his elbows, staying low enough that his head wouldn’t hit the ceiling. “Rats, I suppose? Some other burrowing vermin come to feast on my flesh?” He reached around for a rock to throw but found nothing. “Begone, vermin!” Noise would have to suffice. “I shall not be your dinner yet!”

      The scuffling came closer, got louder. Doc peered toward it but saw nothing in the pitch-blackness.

      “Begone, I say!” He drew up his legs, pulling away from whatever was there. “You won’t find me an easy prey, I promise you!”

      Suddenly, he heard a different sound from the same place, a distinctive sound that could not be mistaken for any other.

      Giggling.

      Doc’s mouth fell open in shock. The question was no longer what was over there—it was who.

      That was no vermin scuffling in the darkness. It was a person.

      Doc’s heart hammered in his chest. He meant to snap out some words of defiance to try to intimidate his giggling visitor.

      But before a single word could leave Doc’s lips, the visitor scrambled forward. Hands grabbed hold of Doc’s ankles and wrenched his legs straight with an iron grip.

      Then a voice, high-pitched and girlish in the lightless void, said, “You’re mine now. All mine.”

      Doc gathered his bravado and snapped, “Now, see here!”

      But those were the only words he got out before the person—or thing—in the night dragged him from his stony cell.

      And then, all of a sudden, there were many more hands, coming from all directions. And all of them were grabbing at Doc.

       Chapter Four

      Krysty woke screaming from a deep sleep, her dreams shattered by a lightning bolt of pain.

      Her eyes shot open, seeing predawn grayness all around. Dimly, she was aware of other bodies stirring on the ground nearby, snapped awake by the sound of her screams.

      Then another bolt slashed through her mind, throwing her into a mindless seizure of agony.

      As she writhed on the ground, she heard footsteps running toward her and familiar voices calling out—Ryan’s, J.B.’s, Mildred’s. But Krysty couldn’t sort out the words they were saying or attempt to respond to them. She was too consumed with pain and the crazed need to make it stop…and one other thing.

      Dread. An overwhelming feeling of dread at whatever phenomenon the pain might be signaling, just as it had signaled the earlier onslaught that had swept away Doc.

      Suddenly the pain abated, and Krysty slumped. Heaving for breath, she fought to clear the haze that had shrouded her senses and stolen her ability to function normally.

      “Krysty!” Ryan knelt at her left side, gazing worriedly down at her.

      Krysty felt him gripping her hand and suddenly realized he’d been holding it for a while, tight enough to give her pins and needles.

      “I’m okay, I’m okay.” She nodded weakly. “Just another one of those attacks.”

      “Easy does it, Krysty.” Mildred knelt at her right side, touching the back of a hand to Krysty’s forehead. “Deep, slow breaths, honey. In and out, in and out.”

      “What coming?” Jak’s voice rose up from somewhere nearby. “Last time fit, muties attack and rock wall appear.”

      “I don’t know.” Krysty closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing her mind the way she did when she called on the power of Gaia, the Earth Mother. Reaching out, she strained to find some thread of the force that had triggered her pain, some whisper of whatever had brought on the bolts of pain.

      But there was nothing. Just emptiness and stillness.

      Or was there something after all? As Krysty continued to strain, she felt what might have been a faint tension, pressing in the distance.

      Scowling, СКАЧАТЬ