Axler, James - Deathlands 00 by Encounter

Author:Encounter [v1.0](htm) [Encounter [v1.0](htm)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-20T02:13:03+00:00

"CRYING SHAME about the gaudies," the skinny sec man said to the guard standing next to him, this for perhaps the tenth time. He was talking just to keep from falling asleep on his feet. The perimeter they were supposed to be guarding was so big—it encompassed four square blocks of Virtue Lake's commercial district—that the sentries were strung out pretty thin. The nearest other sec men were more than 150 feet away, and they had an oil drum, the lucky bastards. A fire was something that kept the mind occupied. And the body, too. A fire you could tend. You could feed. You could poke. You could watch the flames shoot up.

The skinny sec man could no longer even pretend to watch the edge of the shantytown for possible trouble. Nobody was coming his way. After what had happened earlier in the afternoon, who would want to break into the convoy area, anyway? Be like walking into a rad-blasted minefield. Hours earlier all the gawkers and the drunks had drifted off. There wasn't even anybody to warn to stay back anymore. He had hoped to be able to fire a few warning shots over somebody's head, or into somebody's head if the opportunity arose, but that hadn't happened, either.

"Yeah, a shame," said the sour-faced sec man standing next to him. Eyes glazed over with boredom, he was picking at the huge gaps between his teeth with a sharp splinter of wood.

"Pizza Man was my favorite," the skinny one went on. He lowered his machine pistol and let it hang down by its shoulder sling. Then he pushed it out of the way behind his hip so he had room to talk with his hands. "That gaudy had the best beer in the whole damned ville. At Pizza Man you'd never find something nasty in the bottom of your glass. Nothing with legs, anyway."

"Yeah, good beer."

"There was some friendly women there, too. Not much to look at. Seen trash-can lids with more sex appeal. But real friendly, even if you didn't have a zealie to spend on them."

"Yeah, friendly."

"You know I seen the bodies carried out, and then had me a look-see at the place before we got the order to pull back. Man, there was nothing left inside the walls. Just heaps of crushed concrete block and broken glass. Do you think all the sluts got chilled? Man, that would be a shame. Kind of chokes me up, to tell the truth."

"Yeah, me, too."

After a long pause, the first sec man added, "But it was quick, you got to figure it was quick. There's a mercy in that."

When his companion didn't parrot a reply, the sec man started to turn. As he did, he heard a strange rasping sound. What he saw beside him was a woman with short green hair and a fierce expression, her teeth bared like an animal, stepping out from behind the other guard.

Then he saw that his companion was crumpling to the road, and that his armor vest was sheeting blood from a throat cut ear to ear.

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