Synthezoids Endworld 30 Read online

  Copyright © 2017 David Robbins

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  Any such distributions or reproductions of this publication will be punishable under the United States Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to the fullest extent including Profit Damages (SEC 504 A1), Statutory Damages (SEC 504 2C) and Attorney Fees and Court Costs.

  DISCLAIMER: This is a fictional work. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Mad Hornet Pub.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-0-9977390-8-4

  Dedicated to Judy, Joshua and Shane

  CHAPTER ONE

  They were so hungry, so thirsty. They stood on a rocky ridge, the eleven of them, surveying the dark valley below. The pale light of the full moon cast the blistered landscape in an eerie luminescence.

  Unable to hide the fear that all of them were feeling, Big Bill said in a hushed tone, “Lord help us. The Valley of Shadow.”

  Several of the scavengers shifted uneasily. Others fingered weapons. One hulking brute nervously gnawed on his bottom lip.

  “The stories they tell,” the gnawer said.

  Scragg, their leader, scratched at his filthy shirt. “Go around or go on through? That’s what we have to decide. And it can’t be just me who does. Everybody has a say.”

  Rilletta hefted her spear and placed her other hand on the hilt of her machete. “What choice do we got? It’s thirty miles if we go around. Only five if we cut straight across. And on the other side is the lake.”

  “The trick is make it there alive,” Orin said. He was tall, lanky, and whipcord tough.

  “The Valley of Shadow,” Big Bill said again. “People say there are....things....down there.”

  Rilletta’s stomach growled. She was so hungry, her gut hurt. So thirsty, she would drink a cup of pee were it handed to her. “Have any of us ever seen one of those things?”

  “How can anybody see anything?” another scavenger said, and gestured.

  A thick yellow fog shrouded the Valley of Shadow. From out of it writhed yellow tendrils, as if alive. The only visible object along its entire winding length were the upper reaches of the Tower, as it was widely known, a gigantic darkling needle that thrust at the sky as if striving to pierce the heavens.

  Scragg put his huge hands on his hips and grunted. “They say the Dark Lord is gone. They say he was killed by the Warriors from that compound up north.”

  “The Home, they call it,” Orin said.

  “Damn them, anyhow,” Big Bill said. “Some of those Warriors killed friends of mine.”

  “I can’t believe they ghosted Thanatos,” another scavenger said. “The Dark Lord was supposed to be unbeatable.”

  Rilletta took a step and turned to face the rest. “We’re wasting time jawing. We need food, bad. We need water even more. At the lake there’s both. So what’s it going to be? Straight through? Or the long way around?”

  The other scavengers looked at Scragg. “I told you,” he said. “It can’t just be me who decides.”

  “I’m for cutting across,” Rilletta said. “I can’t last much longer without something to eat.” As if to accent her point, her stomach let out with a louder growl.

  “Where you go, babe, I go,” Orin said.

  That was when Gawl came up to Scragg. A spiked mace draped over his wide shoulder, his big frame covered in bear hide, he nudged Scragg and said, “She’s right, brother. We need to reach the lake country. Let’s get to it. I’m going through. Anyone wants to take the long way, good luck to them.” Wheeling, he started down.

  “You heard my brother,” Scragg said. “Make up your minds quick. Mine is already made up.” He followed Gawl.

  A man named Hinks crossed himself and muttered something under his breath, then trailed after them.

  Rilletta, with Orin at her elbow, did likewise.

  One by one, so did everyone else.

  The slope was practically barren, stripped of all plant life save for a few straggly weeds. Over a century ago, Armageddon had fallen with devastating finality on the whole planet and many areas had never recovered.

  Worry dug at Rilletta like a cold knife. She sensed something evil about the Valley, something so vile, she swore she could feel it in her bones. She tried to make light of the feeling, tried telling herself it was nerves. After all, stories about the Valley of Shadow had been the stuff of late night campfire scares since she was little.

  Orin’s hand was on his revolver. He was one of only three scavengers with guns. “Once we reach the lake, how about we strip down and skinnydip.” He grinned and winked.

  “Is that all you ever think of?” Rilletta said.

  “Woman, you’re the only pleasure I have in this world,” Orin said. “The only thing I care for besides me.”

  “Don’t get mushy,” Rilletta said, but she was mightily pleased.

  Gawl reached the bottom and stopped a stone’s throw from the heavy yellow mist. He waited until everyone else had caught up, then said, “Who wants to go first?”

  Scragg extended a thick finger. “Hawkins, that would be you.”

  The scrawniest of the men blanched. “How come?”

  “Because I say so,” Scragg said.

  A redhead named Aretha snorted and said, “That’s telling him, leader man.”

  Hawkins swallowed and drew a rusty sword from its rusted scabbard. “I always get the dirty work.”

  “If you pulled your weight more, maybe you wouldn’t,” Aretha said.

  “Go in a few steps and stand there until I say to come out,” Scragg commanded.

  “That’s all?” Hawkins said in obvious relief.

  Rilletta smothered a laugh. The fool didn’t realize that was more than enough to establish whether the fog was poisonous.

  “The rest of you will cover me, right?” Hawkins said.

  “You bet,” Scragg assured him.

  His face twitching from fright, Hawkins edged forward. “Always me, always me, always me,” he said over and over. On the verge of entering the unnatural vaporous soup, he stopped and looked back. “Hey! How come it doesn’t spread more?”

  “What?” Scragg said

  “Why does this stuff stop right here?” Hawkins said, indicating where the fog rose like a yellow wall. “Why doesn’t the wind carry it more?”

  “How the hell would we know?” Scragg said. “Quit stalling and get on with it.”

  Hawkins swallowed hard and inched his left foot forward. When his toes touched the fog, he jerked his foot back. Nothing happened, and he stuck his whole foot in, waited a few seconds, and pulled it out. “It’s safe!” he said cheerfully.

  “Your foot ain’t you,” Scragg said.

  Muttering, Hawkins inserted most of his left leg. He moved it up and down and from side and side and then stepped back and examined his pants. “I’m fine.”

  “Your pants ain’t you either,” Scragg said.

  Hawkins wasn’t taking chances. Holding out his left arm, he eased it into the fog until the vapors reached his elbow. Quickly moving back, he gave his arm a shake and examined it. “Still nothing.”

  “Keep this up and I will by-God beat you,” Scragg
said.

  Gawl and others laughed.

  “Hey, I’m doing my best,” Hawkins said. Straightening, he took a loud, long breath, held it, and took a single step into the fog, immersing his whole body. They could still see him as he quaked and gazed about in sheer terror.

  Rilletta bet herself he wouldn’t last a minute. She was right. Half that, and Hawkins backpedaled out and gulped breaths of fresh air as if his life depended on it. When he finally subsided, he gave a little bark of joy. “I’m still alive!”

  “Go deeper,” Scragg said.

  “Do I have to?” Hawkins complained. He didn’t wait for an answer. Taking another deep breath, he marched in anew. After three or four steps, they lost sight of him.

  Rilletta tensed, anticipating a shriek or the roar of some beast but all she heard was the sibilant whisper of the fog.

  “Hawkins?” Scragg called out.

  There was no answer.

  “You hear us in there?” Orin yelled. “Let us know it’s safe for the rest of us!”

  A tendril snaked out of the mist near where Hawkins had entered and uncoiled toward the sky.

  “Spooky stuff,” Aretha said.

  “He must be dead,” Big Bill said. “Looks like we’ll have to go around.”

  The fog parted and out came Hawkins, strutting as if he were the king of the world. Placing the tip of his sword on the ground, he leaned on it and declared, “I guess I showed all of you who has a pair.”

  "A pair of what, sweetie?” Aretha said, and cupped her bosom. “These babies?”

  Even Rilletta laughed at that.

  “It must be safe, then,” Scragg said. “But we go slow. Single file. Stay close to whoever is in front of you. And try not to breathe too much if you can help it.”

  “We should hold hands,” Orin suggested, “so none of us ends up separated.”

  “Like hell,” Scragg said. “The only one who ever holds my hand is Aretha.”

  Rilletta liked the idea. There were too many tales about the Valley of Shadow. Old tales, true, from when the Dark Lord, Thanatos, ruled the Valley, before the Warriors did him in.

  Rilletta had gone up against the Warriors once, at that place they lived, the Home. This was back when the band of scavengers numbered over forty, back when their leader was a nasty piece of work called Bronk. Bronk got it into his head that they should assault the walled compound. Rilletta and Orin had spoken out against the idea. They reminded Bronk that there were fifteen or more of those Warriors, and they had a rep for being the toughest mothers around. Bronk overruled them. He said that forty was a lot more than fifteen. That they might lose a few but it would be worth it. The people in the compound—-the Family, they called themselves—-supposedly had food and clothes to spare, as well as a wealth of rare goodies from the days before the world went to hell.

  Bronk’s idea was for their band to creep up on the compound in the dead of night and hide in the surrounding forest. Bronk wasn’t daunted by the high brick walls or the fact that only way in was across a drawbridge that was nearly always up. Nor did it worry him that there was a cleared space between the forest and the walls. Bronk was confident that if the drawbridge were lowered, the scavengers could charge out and get across before the Family raised it. And once inside, they would wreak havoc.

  Along about the middle of the morning, Bronk got his wish. The drawbridge clanked down and out came half a dozen women and several children. Some of the women carried baskets. A lone man escorted them, a Warrior, presumably, a small guy dressed in a black outfit and armed with a sword he had stuck through a sash around his waist.

  Bronk was crafty. He waited until the women and kids were a good distance from the drawbridge so they wouldn’t be able to scurry back in before the scavengers reached them. At his bellow, the whole band burst from concealment and attacked.

  Rilletta was in the middle of the pack, howling along with the rest. She figured the women and children would panic and run but they surprised her. They hurried toward the compound but stuck together in good order, ushering the children along. The small man in black stood between those he was protecting and the onrushing scavengers and drew his sword.

  Stupid, Rilletta had thought at the time. But only until the first of her band reached him and the small man exploded into motion. She never saw anyone so fast. Too quick for her eyes to follow, he delivered death strokes right and left. Four scavengers went down in half as many seconds.

  Up on the wall, a rifle began booming. At each shot a scavenger dropped.

  Not seconds later, out of the Home rushed more Warriors. Four of them, as Rilletta remembered. A guy in buckskins with pearl-handled revolvers, an Indian in fatigues, a big guy dressed all in blue, and an even bigger guy in a leather vest carrying what looked like an old Thompson, with a pair of Bowies strapped around his waist.

  At a yell from Bronk, a lot of the scavengers veered off from trying to catch the women and kids to confront the newcomers. Fortunately, Rilletta wasn’t among them.

  The guy with the pearl-handled revolvers was incredible. When his hands flashed, death boomed. Ambidextrous, alternating his shots, he fired with astounding rapidity. His Indian friend opened up with a heavy-caliber rifle, the first round taking off most of the head of a charging scavenger. The guy in blue resorted to an SMG, while the even bigger guy with the Thompson or whatever it was cut loose with lethal efficiency.

  The attack became a slaughter.

  Barely twenty of them were left when Bronk began shouting to break it off and, “Run like hell!”

  Rilletta did, looking back as she reached the trees in time to see Bronk sliced open by the small guy with the sword. Then she was in the forest and running and panting and sweating and praying the Warriors wouldn’t come after them.

  “Hey, sweetness! Pay attention.”

  Rilletta was brought out of herself by Orin touching her arm.

  “You all right, babe?”

  “Sure,” Rilletta said.

  “I don’t care what Scragg says. Let’s hold hands.”

  “Fine by me,” Rilletta said.

  They were about to enter the fog.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Hickok was bored.

  Alpha Triad had night duty, and it was his turn to make a sweep of the walls. Ambling along the south rampart, his thumbs hooked in his gunbelt, he stifled a yawn and idly gazed at the sparkling stars overhead and then out over the Stygian expanse of dark wilderness. “Where’s a mutate when you need one?” he grumbled.

  Hickok lived for action. He would be the first to admit that he craved excitement like his younguns craved sweets. Over a month had gone by since Alpha Triad returned from a mission in Asia that went terribly wrong. Over a month of ordinary routine, of peace and quiet for everyone in the Home.

  It was driving him nuts.

  “Please make something happen,” Hickok said to the sky. “A chemical cloud. A rabid rabbit. Anything.” He wasn’t serious about the chemical cloud. A lingering horrific legacy of the warfare that ravaged the world, chem clouds devoured everything in their path, eating away living tissue down to the bone. Being caught in one was the worst fate imaginable.

  Such abominations were all too common. The biological weapons unleashed during Armageddon had reacted with the chemical weapons and elevated levels of radiation from nuclear fallout to produce a legion of monstrosities.

  As for the rabid rabbit, Hickok hadn’t seen a rabbit in so long, he wondered if there were any left. A lot of species had gone extinct, crushed under the heel of the harsh environment.

  Hickok came to the north wall and stopped to scan the forest. A faint howl perked his interest, but whatever made it was too distant to pose a threat. He continued on to the west rampart above the drawbridge, where his two best pards in all creation were waiting.

  Geronimo was clad in his usual fatigues, a .45-70 slung over his shoulder. “Look who’s back already,” he teased. “White Man must be so scared of the dark, he ran.”

&n
bsp; “Ornery Injun would know about scared,” Hickok said. “He runs from his own shadow.”

  A few yards away, a seven-foot giant in a black leather vest turned. “Anything out of the ordinary?”

  “I wish, big guy,” Hickok said. “If it were any more peaceful, we could trade in our weapons for knittin’ needles.”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of all the dangers we face?” Geronimo said. “I know I do.”

  “A little excitement is good for the circulation,” Hickok said. “Keeps a gent on his toes.”

  “You’re warped,” Geronimo said. “I don’t want to always have to worry about my wife and family and friends. I’d like us to be able to live like people did before the Big Blast. They didn’t need to always be on the look-out for something or someone out to kill them.” He paused. “How about you, Blade? Do you agree with doofus, here?”

  The giant placed his calloused hands on the hilts of his twin Bowies. “I’m as sick of the threats as you are.” He let out a sigh. “But things are as they are.”

  “I hear that,” Hickok said. “What good is wishful thinking? It’s not our fault the world is a mess. We didn’t set off all hose nukes over a century ago. We didn’t fire all those missiles filled with chemical canisters. We were born into this madhouse. The best we can do is take it one day at a time and wipe out any and all critters and creeps and whatnot that might do us or our loved ones in.”

  “I’m impressed,” Geronimo said. “That was almost profound.”

  “I have a brain, you know,” Hickok said.

  “News to the rest of us,” Geronimo said.

  Blade snorted.

  “Are you taking this mangy redskin’s side?” Hickok said.

  “Don’t involve me in your silliness,” Blade said. “At times you both act like you’re ten-years old.”

  “I resent that,” Hickok said. “Eleven or twelve, maybe. But definitely not ten.”

  “Speak for yourself, whitey,” Geronimo said. “I’m fourteen and proud of it.”

  Blade tiredly rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I bet Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Spartacus never have to put up with antics like yours from the Warriors in their Triads.”