Remember Tomorrow. James Axler

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СКАЧАТЬ to conserve water.

      Apart from scrub and the occasional lizard, there was little sign of life. In the distance they occasionally glimpsed a solitary bird of prey or the intimation that there were flocks of smaller birds—a misty cloud moving in the blue that could be a wisp of cumulus or a flock on the wing. Nothing closer. Any mammals that scratched some kind of a living from the land were safely burrowed away, the occasional hole in the ground being all that betrayed their presence.

      The companions trudged on, measuring the tedium of time only by the achingly slow movement of the sun across the sky. At least it wasn’t quite as hot as they feared. They had been through worse. In fact, there were even a few breezes that gently crossed the empty land, relieving the beat of the heat.

      Breezes that slowly, almost unnoticeably, grew stronger.

      It was Mildred who first noticed it. Quite by chance, she looked to her left to relieve the boredom of looking at the ground in front of her.

      “Oh shit…Ryan,” she said softly.

      Lost in some reverie of his own, Ryan snapped back to attention when he heard her voice. He looked back at her and followed the direction in which she was pointing. All the companions followed the direction of her finger.

      “By the Three Kennedys,” Doc breathed. “It was Montana, 1878, when I was last privy to such a sight.”

      “Yeah? And this might be the last time you see it unless we can find some cover,” J.B. murmured.

      What had caught their attention was awesome and beautiful, but almost certainly deadly. In the distance, gaining ground rapidly on them, a zephyr was whipping the earth into a turmoil. Clouds of dust and dirt were flying at strange trajectories as the currents of air flung them from their path. Now they understood why the breezes had become more insistent. The outlying currents had stirred the air for some miles around, and were increasing with every second. In fact, at the speed the zephyr was moving, it would reach them very shortly.

      The storm surrounding the air currents was violent, ripping up great chunks of earth, hurling rock and stone about at vicious speeds.

      “Cover,” Ryan yelled, already aware that the noise of the approaching storm was growing, drowning him. He cast about for some kind of shelter, something that would cover them until the zephyr passed over. That wouldn’t take long, the speed at which it was moving, but long enough to injure or chill them.

      “There,” Jak yelled, indicating a cave that seemed to disappear down into the ground. It wasn’t set into a hill of any kind, but seemed to be the only indication that there had once been raised land. It was more like a pothole. But it was shelter.

      “Okay, let’s go,” Ryan yelled, running toward it, tracking back to one side to help Doc, who was slower than the others. Mildred, Krysty and Jak gained the entrance, with J.B.—who had been farthest back—catching up to Ryan and Doc, grabbing the old man’s arm and helping Ryan to speed him along. Dirt and stones rained on their backs; wind plucked at their clothes.

      The zephyr was almost on them as they dived for the entrance to the cave.

      Chapter Two

      The sudden darkness was engulfing and all Ryan, J.B. and Doc could feel was the scouring dirt whipping against their backs, rocks and stones thudding into them and the dry, powdered earth forming a choking mist that swirled around them, clogging their mouths, noses and lungs.

      Lights exploded all around behind closed eyes, coughing spasms racked their bodies and the hard rock of the cave floor, covered with the thinnest layer of dirt, was hard against their bodies as they landed flat and awkward, unable to see where they were going.

      “Grab them, get them back in,” Krysty yelled, taking Ryan by one arm and hauling him farther back into the darkness of the caves. J.B. felt two hands on his body, searching for a hold. As he felt himself dragged in one direction he dug his boot heels into the cave floor, pushing with his calves to aid his rescuer by propelling himself as hard as he could. It was more than Mildred expected and she nearly stumbled and fell, the sudden momentum taking her by surprise.

      “Don’t, John, it’ll be okay,” she whispered.

      He marveled that he could hear her above the noise of the storm, then realized that it had lessened. Was that because they had moved into the caves or because the speed of the zephyr was taking it past them already? He had always thought that zephyrs were supposed to be complex but quite harmless combinations of air currents. Someone should tell that to the motherfucker outside. He knew his thoughts were rambling; he had to have hit his head when he fell. It would be good to stop pushing and just relax. He felt himself go loose.

      Jak took hold of Doc. The old man had fallen well and wasn’t too hurt. He was coughing and retching, strings of bile and dirt splattering the floor around him, but he was conscious and aware of Jak’s hands upon him.

      “Heavens, sir, I can manage myself. I’m not that decrepit that I—” He failed to finish as another spasm racked him, the effort of speaking dragging more dirt from his chest. He wretched once more.

      “Talk later, walk now,” Jak murmured, taking Doc beneath the arms and lifting him into a semi-upright position. “You walk okay? Just nod,” he added, not wanting Doc to succumb to more spasms. When Doc assented, Jak spoke just once more. “Keep head low—not high in here.” Jak’s red eyes were better suited to the darkness than anyone else’s in the group, but even he was having trouble adjusting to the almost total darkness.

      Stumbling, crashing into the jagged rock walls and trying to avoid cracking their skulls on the low roof of the cave, the companions made their way back. As the air cleared of dust and Ryan and J.B. were able to breathe more easily, their senses began to return. They hawked and spit the dirt from their lungs; the strength began to flow back into their limbs. Doc, despite the rigors of puking so frequently, found himself able to breathe a little better and, after what had seemed an age but had only been a couple of minutes, the dust storm caused by the zephyr was far behind them.

      “Fireblast, it’s darker than a coldheart’s soul in here,” Ryan uttered. “I can’t see where the hell we’re headed.”

      “None of us can,” Krysty added. “Not even Jak, I’d reckon.”

      “Too dark,” the albino replied. “Better stop. Bad feeling about this.”

      “Sounds like a good idea,” Ryan stated. “Find out where the hell we are before we lose the way back. Besides which, I don’t like this smell.”

      “It is like a charnel house, but not one which has been well maintained,” Doc interjected, his voice high and strained, cracking from the dust that had caught in his lungs despite his body’s attempts to expel it. His frail physique was showing the strain. Doc’s body, stressed in unimaginable ways by the hardships of his previous life, was sometimes apt to react in ways that baffled the others. He had been less buffeted by the storm than Ryan and J.B., but was taking longer to recover.

      But there was nothing wrong with his sense of smell. The dark caves, riddled with a dank, damp aura now that they had obviously been traveling downward, were filled with the sickly sweet odors of flesh in varying stages of decay. Come to that, their heavy combat boots had already crunched underfoot what may have been wood, but which may also have been old bone. They had sheltered in caves on numerous occasions, and had come to discover that caves could be the homes of some triple-dangerous creatures.

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