Black Harvest. James Axler

      They didn’t know what to expect.

      But together, they were ready for anything.

      Chapter Two

      When they got to the river’s edge, Mildred did a quick rudimentary test of the water to see if it might make them sick. “It’s pretty clean,” she said, holding up a test tube of the clear liquid.

      Ryan nodded. “Let’s make camp, then. Krysty, Doc and Mildred set up a perimeter. Jak, you and J.B. see if you can catch us something to eat.”

      In silence, the friends split up and took their positions.

      Meanwhile, Ryan gathered a few dried branches and set them in a pile for a fire. He’d light it later, depending on how lucky J.B. and Jak were in the river. If not, they’d have to eat the last of their rations and hope to find something else to eat in the morning.

      His stomach growled and churned at the thought of it.

      “Help!”

      It was a woman’s voice coming from somewhere downriver.

      “J.B.?” Ryan called.

      “Heard it. ’Bout a hundred yards south.”

      “Let’s move.”

      Almost as one, the friends picked up and headed south through the trees, always sticking close to the river’s edge. Ryan could barely see the others through the brush, but he instinctively knew that Jak and J.B. were to his right, spaced about ten yards apart, while his left was flanked by Doc, Mildred and Krysty, with one of them, maybe two, hanging back slightly to cover their rear.

      Another scream came from up ahead.

      It was a woman’s voice, but a different woman than before.

      Jak, the best tracker in the group, stopped and signaled to J.B. and Ryan to do the same. Ryan sent the message along to the others and together the friends slowly closed in around a large clearing by the river.

      Two women, naked. They were either swimming or just spending some time alone together by the water. One was young, tall and blond, her body lean, taut and muscular. The other was older and a bit shorter, with long dark hair that was streaked with gray. Her flesh sagged a bit, her belly distended slightly, but she was more mature and full figured than old and fat.

      The two women were surrounded by four muties similar to the ones the friends had seen in the redoubt. They were dirty and scraggly, their bodies covered by the same sores the girl in the redoubt had.

      “Bang,” one of the men said.

      Another one lunged forward at the women, then stepped back in fear. “Gimme bang.”

      “More crazies?” Krysty said under her breath.

      “There are stranger things in the Deathlands,” Ryan answered evenly.

      “Want jack.”

      “Need smash.”

      “What are they saying?” Krysty asked.

      Ryan shook his head. “I’m not sure, but it sounded like jack…”

      “And smash.”

      “What happened to bang?” J.B. asked.

      “We don’t have any to give you,” said the taller of the two women. “Check our clothes, and you’ll see it’s the truth.”

      Two of the muties riffled through a small pile of clothes on the riverbank, then threw them to the ground in disgust when it was obvious that it was just the women’s clothes and no more. “Nothing.”

      “There has to be something there, check the pockets again.”

      “There’s nothing, I tell you!”

      “What about blasters!” the leader demanded.

      The two men began to search the ground around the clothes, then check under a pile of neatly stacked rocks. In no time, each was lifting what looked like decent-quality remade blasters. “Whoo-eee! Look what I found!”

      All four of the muties were laughing now.

      “These we can trade for bang!”

      “You can have them,” the older woman said. “Just leave us alone.”

      The leader stepped forward. “We’ll be taking them all right, but before we go, we’ll be wanting something else from the two of you…” He leered as he approached the smaller woman. One of the others put a remade in his free hand and he pointed it at the younger woman as the other mutie neared.

      She trembled in fear and wanted to run away, but there was no place for her to go. They were surrounded.

      “Should we do something?” Krysty asked.

      “Not our fight,” Ryan answered.

      “Yeah, but I don’t like the odds.”

      After a moment’s silence, Ryan said, “Me neither.” He carefully leveled his SIG-Sauer at the leader, who was now gesturing to the others to help him.

      “Hold her down so I can give her a—”

      The man never finished his sentence. His last words died in his throat as a thundering round from Doc’s huge LeMat blaster took out the man’s neck and a large chunk of his shoulder.

      The mutie holding one of the blasters turned and squeezed off a single round before he was cut down by blasterfire from Mildred Wyeth’s Czech-built ZKR 551. The onetime Olympic target shooter caught the vile man with a perfectly aimed round that hit him between the eyes and slightly above the eyebrows.

      With two of their fellows down, the survivors looked scared and confused. They turned to run, but were torn apart by blasterfire from the rest of the friends. Jak’s powerful Colt Python struck one of them in the shoulder, sending him tumbling heels over head into the river. And the last mutie fell to a round from Ryan’s SIG-Sauer that caught him in the back of the neck. Although it was impossible to know if it was a round from Ryan’s blaster or Krysty’s Smith & Wesson .38 that actually took the sorry man’s life, one thing was for certain—he was chilled and on the last train west before he hit the ground.

      In the moments after the volley of blasterfire, all that could be heard were the muted sobs of the two women, who had gone from nearly being raped and killed, to being rescued by a band of outlanders, all in a matter of seconds.

      “Anybody hurt?” Ryan called out.

      At first no one answered, and then, “Yes.”

      Ryan looked at each of the friends, searching for the wounded one.

      “It’s Jak,” Mildred said. “Caught him in the shoulder.”

      Ryan ran to where Mildred was kneeling down beside the white-headed teenager. Even though Ryan could see Jak had suffered a wound in the shoulder that was leaking blood and causing him pain, he deferred to the doctor for a better assessment. “How bad?”

      “Bad enough,” Jak answered.

      Ryan waited to hear from Mildred.

      “Bullet went through the shoulder and tore up the flesh pretty good. Can’t be sure if there’s any damage to the bones unless I get a proper look. I can close the wound easy enough, but there’s always a chance the flesh could turn.”

      Ryan nodded.

      “Be fine,” Jak said, grimacing in pain as Mildred began giving the wound a field dressing. “Not worry.”

      Ryan turned toward the two women and saw Doc stepping into the clearing. “It is okay,” he said. “You two are going to be all right.”

      The older of the two women picked up her clothes and covered herself in modesty.

      “Ah,