Child Of Slaughter - James Axler

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screams erupted and the blasterfire from below became sparser, Ryan, Jak and Ricky grew bolder and leaned over the rim for a better view. By then, only three of the muties were still on their feet; Ryan and Jak each picked off one, and J.B. joined the party and took out the third.

      “Think we got ’em all?” J.B. threw down more rounds from the Mini-Uzi, making sure everyone in the trench was dead for real.

      “Who know?” Jak swung up his Python and turned a slow circle, looking around. “This place full surprises.”

      For a moment, the landscape was quiet except for the soft trickle of settling dust in the bullet-riddled trenches.

      Then, suddenly, Krysty let loose the loudest scream of all. It was so long and loud and full of pain, it could have been a howl released from the depths of torture or childbirth.

      Ryan whirled in her direction, ready to run…and then he froze. A familiar stillness closed in around him, like the calm he’d felt before the rock wall had appeared between him and the grenade-launching mutie.

      Once again, he had that feeling of something lurching out of place, followed by powerful suction and expulsion in perfect balance. When the balance broke, a wave of force shot through him, holding him paralyzed.

      An instant later, the wave let him go. The release spun him and nearly bowled him over, but he stayed on his feet through sheer force of will, which meant he had a ringside seat to see what happened next. J.B., Jak and Ricky had fallen around him, but Ryan was upright and alert.

      As he watched, dizzy and shaking, the ground at his feet rippled and changed. There were flashes of light, popping across the plain one after another like giant fireflies, and the trenches that held the corpses disappeared, becoming indistinguishable from the rest of the flatland.

      Still, the ripples continued to flow forward, heading for the trio of human targets in the distance.

      Heart pounding with urgency, Ryan ran toward them. He saw Krysty continuing to writhe on the ground, flinging her head from side to side while Mildred tried in vain to restrain her. Doc stood over them both with his sword in one hand and the LeMat in the other, shouting something as he watched the ripples flow toward them.

      Impact would come in mere seconds. Ryan ran as hard as he could, his legs pumping like pistons in the engine of a speeding wag, but he knew he wouldn’t reach his friends in time.

      “Krysty!”

      The ripples on the ground rushed up ahead of him and encompassed his three friends. Krysty, Mildred and Doc all seemed to quiver at once; even the air around them seemed to vibrate.

      As Ryan increased his speed, redoubling his effort to reach them in time, the quivering effect intensified. He felt the hum again, the same as before, building to a rumble in his chest and bones…in his heart. It was an irregular thrumming rhythm in counterpoint to his own pulse and footsteps, distorting his natural cadence.

      Ryan fought through it, determined to reach Krysty and the others. If the effect was going to do something to them, he wanted to share the same fate. He was determined not to be separated from his lover and his friends.

      Up ahead, the oscillation reached a fever pitch, accelerating until it blurred his view of his friends, creating a shivering patina of light and color in their place. Then there was a blinding flash of light.

      The ground under Ryan heaved, knocking him off his feet. He landed on his back and quickly pushed himself up to see what had happened.

      In that instant, he experienced a wave of panic. Instead of his three friends, all he could see was a rocky hill that had mysteriously appeared between his position and theirs.

      Scrambling to his feet, Ryan ran for the hill. As he circled it, he felt a terrible sense of doom and fear that the woman he loved more than anyone in the world was gone now and forever.

      His heart was slamming in his chest as he dodged around the far edge of the hill, dreading what he was about to see. His eyes zoomed to the spot where Krysty had been and he saw that she was still there, with Mildred by her side.

      Instantly, a flood of relief coursed through Ryan’s body. Krysty was no longer writhing and twitching on the ground. Instead, her body was limp, her face relaxed for the first time since they’d been ambushed by the band of muties.

      But Ryan quickly realized that not everyone’s situation had improved. Looking around, he saw that the third member of the group was nowhere to be seen.

      “Where’s Doc?” Ryan asked. “What happened to him?”

      Mildred shook her head. “Damned if I know.” She was scowling, her face crusted with dirt. “He was here just a second ago.” Her brown eyes flashed to the hump of rock. “And if you ask me where that came from, I’ll tell you the same thing. I don’t know what the hell just happened.”

      Krysty’s eyelids fluttered open, and she gazed up at Ryan. Though she was no longer rolling and screaming in pain, her green eyes still looked dazed, her face haggard. “There’s something horrible here…something unnatural.” Her voice was hoarse as she spoke.

      “What do you mean?” Ryan asked.

      She looked at him, her fiery red tresses flowing around her face like a parted veil. “Something here is warping Earth itself in a way I’ve never felt before. I feel as though it’s killing Gaia…and me.”

       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

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