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Chapter Two
Doc had vanished into thin air.
The companions recced the area where they’d been attacked by the muties, but they found no trace of the old man and no trace of any opening into which he might have fallen.
“Where Doc go?” Jak asked as he finished his latest search pattern and met up with Ryan. “If trapdoor or tunnel, I not see.”
Ryan sighed. “People don’t just disappear, Jak.”
“Walls not appear, either.” Jak nodded at the rock wall that had materialized during the battle. It stood not thirty feet away, as solid as if it had always been there.
The companions had examined that particular formation with great care, guessing it might hold some clue to what had happened to Doc. But they had all come to the same conclusion: if the rock wall contained any clue, it could not be detected by their senses.
Just then, Krysty approached, grimly shaking her head. “I’m coming up empty,” she said. “If Doc is anywhere nearby, I can’t feel the slightest trace of him.”
“But you still think his disappearance is connected to the…disruption you felt?” Ryan asked.
“How could it not be?” Krysty shrugged. “The disturbance, the changes in the land we saw during the battle. Then Doc disappears.”
“Not coincidence,” Jak said. “That for sure.”
“Then, what the hell is it?” Ryan gazed at the stark Nebraska landscape, watching as his friends continued to scour the area for a clue to Doc’s whereabouts. They were coming up just as empty as Krysty and Jak had.
It was beyond frustrating. In the Deathlands, problems tended to be straightforward: battles in need of fighting; hardships in need of surviving; helping allies deal with tangible threats. A person had to be tough and wily and able to think outside the box…but a person didn’t usually have to think outside the bounds of reality. The companions didn’t usually have to face the impossible.
“What next?” Jak asked.
Ryan shifted the weight of his Steyr Scout longblaster cradled in his arms. Keeping the weapon at the ready was crucial; if the muties could take them all by surprise once, they could do it again.
“We keep looking. The land here changed before. Mebbe it’ll change again, and this time we’ll see where Doc went.”
“Not give up on friend.” Jak nodded firmly. “Always good plan.”
“Something has to turn up.” Ryan met Krysty’s green-eyed gaze, searching for confirmation of his hope.
Krysty smiled. “It always does,” she said before turning away to resume her search, leaving Ryan to wonder how much of the conviction in her voice was for his benefit.
* * *
AFTER A FEW more hours of searching, sundown came and put an end to it. Going over the same barren ground after nightfall made no sense. If the trail was nonexistent in broad daylight, it wouldn’t likely become visible in the beams of flashlights.
Still, the group stayed in the area and pitched camp at the rock wall, in the hope that Doc might reappear.
The companions broke open their packs, dining on MREs they’d scrounged from the redoubt they’d jumped to.
“How long are we going to stay here?” Mildred asked as she threw down her bedroll in the dirt.
“Until we find a lead on what happened to Doc.” As he said it, Ryan stole a glance at Krysty, who was also rolling out a sleeping bag. The truth was, they couldn’t stay long at all, not if the place was killing Krysty. He wasn’t about to risk losing her.
J.B. flashed him a look that said he could see right through him.
“I hope that lead turns up damn soon,” the Armorer said.
Ryan nodded. “You and me both.”
“Supplies low,” Jak said, smacking the side of his backpack for emphasis.
“I know that,” Ryan replied.
“Can’t build fire,” the albino added. “No firewood near.”
Ryan nodded. He knew Jak and Ricky had looked hard for it, to no avail. This part of Nebraska—the Sandhills, according to a map in the redoubt—was rich in sand and rock and not much else. If there was a stick of wood or a growing thing anywhere in a five-mile radius, they hadn’t come across it yet.
“We’ll take it as it comes, like we always do.” Ryan met the eyes of his companions, each in turn, projecting all the strength and confidence he could muster. “For now, we need some shut-eye.” Gripping his longblaster tightly, he stared into the moonlit night. He didn’t ask for anyone’s opinion; he was taking the first watch, looking out for muties on the move.
So was J.B. “I kind of hope one of those damn muties shows up.” Mini-Uzi in hand, the Armorer walked up to stand beside Ryan. “Mebbe he could give us a lead on Doc.”
“You think the muties took him?” asked Ricky, who was sitting with his back against the base of the rock wall, cleaning his Webley Mk VI revolver.
“Good chance of it, if you ask me,” J.B. stated. “They seemed to know exactly what changes were coming, and when. It was like they could read the phenomenon.”
“Or control it,” Mildred suggested. “If that’s even possible.”
“Why not?” J.B. shrugged. “We know certain people can be attuned to the Earth Mother.” He glanced over his shoulder at Krysty. “Why not control her, as well?”
“Whatever they’ve done, whatever’s happening here, it’s awful.” Krysty scowled and rubbed her temples. “It’s wrong. Beyond wrong.”
“And Doc’s out there alone in the middle of it.” Mildred stepped up alongside J.B. and cast her gaze into the night. “Either that, or he’s…” Her voice trailed off.
No one wanted to finish her sentence.
Chapter Three
“Am I dead?”
As Doc blinked his eyes open, he could see nothing but darkness. He tossed his head one way, then the other, and the result was the same. More darkness.
But not emptiness. He could feel a solid 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, she struggled to tighten her focus even more, to home in on whatever was out there. At the same time, she tried to steel herself against the next bolt of pain that might come.
“Look like find something,” Jak said.
“Not sure yet.” Krysty gritted her teeth and cast her net as wide as she could. Was she tuning something in or feeling something that wasn’t there? She couldn’t tell.
“Krysty.” Ryan leaned closer. “We should get you out of here. You said this place is killing you.”
“No, wait.” Krysty sat up and raised a hand. The tension was definitely there, as if something were being pushed, or pulled…
Or stretched.
“Everybody!” Krysty snapped her eyes open and leaped to her feet. “Get out of here, now!”
“You heard her!” Ryan shouted. “Move! Out the way we came in!”
But it was already too late. Krysty knew it instantly, as the tension she’d felt building suddenly released, like the string of a bow.
Or a fault line in earthquake country.
Before anyone could start running, a familiar wave of force crashed into Krysty. She hung suspended for an instant, her whole body quivering, and then the force let go, whipping her around to slam into Ryan.
As the two of them stumbled, barely holding each other erect, Krysty saw the ground in front of them flutter like a bedsheet. She heard a low hum, followed by a rumble that coursed up through her feet and shook every bone in her body.
Then a flash of light erupted before her like a second sun blazing to life. As the light faded, between the blur of spots left pulsing in her eyes, Krysty saw the thing she’d dreaded, the latest phenomenon signaled by the pain.
The ground was opening up.
“Sinkhole!” As the word left Ryan’s lips, the hole expanded rapidly. In seconds, it was big enough to swallow up a good-size war wag, and still growing at breakneck speed.
The companions were on the move, scattering fast, but not fast enough. Krysty could feel the ground dropping away, disintegrating hot on her heels as she sprinted alongside Ryan.
Suddenly, the hole caught up with her. Like sand in an hourglass, the once-firm ground slid out from under her. Just like that, her feet had nothing solid beneath them, and she started to fall.
Before she could plunge into the widening chasm, though, Ryan’s strong hands seized her arm and hauled her forward. It was all the help she needed. With firm footing restored—at least for the moment—Krysty was able to bolt out of reach of the hungry pit.
Mildred wasn’t as lucky. She screamed in alarm, and Krysty flashed a look in her direction as she ran.
Some twenty feet away, the predark physician was almost completely in the hole. Only her head and shoulders remained above the rim. She was holding on to a hump of rock, her body dangling into the pit as it continued to grow around her.
Instantly, Krysty changed direction and raced toward her friend. She knew Ryan would follow, but she had to prepare as if she alone would mount this rescue.
Dashing toward the dissolving rim of the hole, Krysty focused her thoughts on the familiar power she drew from in times of emergency. Gaia, the Earth Mother, the world itself, provided a wellspring of energy for the few who knew how to tap it, and Krysty counted herself among their number.
Chanting her prayer quickly, she made contact with the power of Gaia, the potent force residing all around her. Embracing the power, she drew a portion of it into her, feeling it churn and crackle within her like a ball of lightning.
Then, as she and the crumbling rim raced toward each other, she let the power explode and infuse every cell of her being.
Leaping just as the rim collapsed in front of her, Krysty landed on the peak of the rock that Mildred clung to. Balancing on the balls of her feet on that peak, Krysty ducked and grabbed hold of Mildred’s upper arms. With one heave, as if she was lifting a child, she pulled Mildred up.
As Mildred looped her arms tightly around Krysty’s neck, the redhead turned, part of her mind wondering if she’d made a fatal error. The bank, which was still dissolving, was nearly thirty feet away.
It would be a long jump, even in her heightened, Gaia-empowered state, but it would only get longer with each second she hesitated. Her odds of survival would only get lower.
So Krysty gathered the power within her and crouched, coiling her muscles for the leap. The bank continued to recede.
Then she took a deep breath, focused the Gaia force and leaped.
Even with the weight of Mildred on her back, Krysty felt light as she sailed through the air. Miraculously, she overtook the dissolving rim and kept going, past the point where the sinkhole might take her as soon as she touched down.
When she did land, Ryan and J.B. were waiting for her. The second Krysty put down Mildred, J.B. had his arm around the woman’s shoulders, urging her forward to flee the approaching pit.
Ryan did the same for Krysty. “Can you keep going?” he asked as they ran.
“Yes.” Whenever Krysty tapped Gaia’s power, she always went through a slump afterward, as if the superhuman exertion had unnaturally exhausted her. But perhaps because of the continued danger, she hadn’t gotten to that point yet.
She and Ryan ran onward after J.B. and Mildred, trying to get past the limits of the sinkhole’s expansion…if there were any. Up ahead, Jak and Ricky had stopped running and were waving their arms, urging them on.
Suddenly, a fresh bolt of pain shot through Krysty’s skull, and she stumbled. She tried to keep running at full tilt, but another bolt caught her, and she stumbled again, heading for a fall.
Ryan’s arms stopped her from hitting the ground. In one smooth movement, he scooped her off her feet and kept going, carrying her away from the sinkhole.
Just then, a shock wave plowed into both of them, nearly bowling them over. Krysty saw the ground around them flow like liquid, and she knew what was coming next.
A blinding flash lit the landscape. Ryan reeled with Krysty in his arms, teetering in the light, and then the flare was suddenly snuffed out.
Instantly, Krysty could feel that the air was different. Everything was quieter and more still than before, with good reason.
The constant rushing of the collapsing ground had ended.
“It stopped.” Looking back, she saw that the sinkhole had finally stopped expanding, leaving the farthest reach of the rim at about thirty feet from them.
“Best news we’ve had all day,” Ryan said. “But why the hell did it start?”
Krysty concentrated, trying to probe their surroundings for a clue, but then the post-Gaia weakness finally struck. Her thoughts scattered like ripples from a pebble tossed into a pond, and she slumped in Ryan’s arms.
Mildred was at her side in a heartbeat. “Are you all right?”
Krysty nodded weakly. “Just worn-out.”
“You just let me know if you need anything.” Mildred patted her cheek lightly.
“What about you?” J.B. put a hand on Mildred’s shoulder, gazing at her with deep concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Mildred said. “Not a big fan of this place, but I’m fine.”
“It hellhole,” Jak stated. “We stay longer, it take us like took Doc.”
“Mebbe we should split up,” J.B. suggested. “One group could get Krysty out of here before the next disruption while the other group stays here and keeps looking for Doc.”
“Or,” shouted Ricky, who was standing on the rim of the crater, pointing into the distance, “we could all follow that.”
Ryan carried Krysty to the rim, and the others joined them. As Krysty looked where Ricky was pointing, she saw what he was talking about.
J.B. blew his breath out in a low whistle. “Dark night!”
“Maybe one good thing came out of that crap storm,” Mildred said.
In the distance beyond the giant sinkhole, Krysty saw that a channel now ran through the surface of the earth—a rough-hewn canal filled with a glowing red liquid. The red substance churned and bubbled, shedding plumes of rippling gray steam that revealed, at a distance, just how hot the channel’s contents had to be. Meaning the red liquid could most likely be only one thing.
“Lava,” Krysty said.
“Magically appearing in the middle of the Sandhills, where there’s zero volcanic activity,” J.B. commented.
“That we know of,” Ryan corrected. But how the lava had gotten there wasn’t the important part, and they all knew it. More important by far was what it might do for them.
And whom it might lead them to.
“Don’t you think it could be a trail?” Ricky asked. “Mebbe it’s pointing at the middle of all this.”
J.B. nodded. “The epicenter of the effect.”
“And that might be where they’re taking Doc,” Ricky added.
Ryan nodded. “Might be, at that.”
“Seem like long shot to me,” Jak said. “How know that where taken?”
“We don’t,” J.B. replied. “But we don’t have any better ideas, do we?”
“I think it’s worth a try.” Ryan looked down at Krysty, still resting in his arms. “But mebbe we should still get you out of here.”
Krysty shook her head. “I don’t want us to split up.” She shifted in his grip, signaling that she wanted him to let her down, which he did. “I can handle whatever comes our way. Don’t worry.”
Ryan held her gaze for a long moment, reading all that remained unsaid between them. Krysty knew he was aware she was making a sacrifice, and that it would cost her, but she would gladly do it if it meant finding Doc.
And she knew he was well aware of one other fact as well: once she decided to do something, there could be no stopping her.
“All right, then.” Ryan nodded. “Let’s gather up what’s left of our gear and get moving. The longer Doc’s out there on his own, the less likely it is that we’ll ever see him again.”
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