The Spawn of the Death Machine by Ted White

Author:Ted White [White, Ted]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780575117846
Google: tIs1AgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00GU2VWHC
Goodreads: 19146587
Publisher: Gateway
Published: 1968-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Up with your hands, there!” rang out the voice. It was sharp and firm, the voice of a man who was very certain of himself. “Get ’em up, or I’ll shoot you down.”

I raised my hands, scanning as I did so the heavy growth of trees to each side of the narrow road.

“Okay, Now move on up where we can get a look at you,” the unseen voice said.

I’d left the big road when it turned north again. I’d passed several intersections of the big road with other roads, but most of these had been north-south roads, and of no interest to me. The intersections were curiously graded, though, massive embankments leading up to places where once great bridges must have spanned. Now only a little rust remained, and sometimes it hadn’t been easy to find the way on across the interchanges. This smaller road had crossed under the road I’d been following, and had wound its way westward into the low mountains. The main road had turned in a great curve due north, and I could see no change in its course for as far as it remained in sight—a good distance up the valley it followed. I had decided to leave it, to continue west.

The day was, like most of the days now, cloudy. Grey banks scudded across the sky. When the sun broke through, it was only for moments at a time. The winds were out of the north—they swept down the valley in heavy gusts—and the trees were shedding their leaves, while the mountains turned rainbow colors. The road was following a narrow gap in the mountains, the road itself choked with undergrowth and often no wider than a few feet. I’d been hoping it wouldn’t play out. Thick pine and spruce grew along the gap, filling the crisp air with the heavy scent of resin. Now low green boughs were thrust aside, and men came at me from each side of the road. One of them was pointing a long-barreled object at me, and once more my subconscious mental catalogue supplied a name: Rifle——gun.

“You alone?” the man with the gun asked.

I nodded. “What do you want with me?” I returned.

A couple of others had come up from behind me. I’d walked into a trap. The mountains weren’t quite empty of people.

“Mebbe nothing, mebbe something,” he replied. “Depends.”

He was a scrawny little man, his Adam’s apple jutting from his neck almost as protuberantly as his hawk nose. His eyes were black and beady and jumped about nervously. His hair was black, flecked with grey, and close-cropped. He needed a shave, but wore no beard or mustache. His clothes were of roughly woven cloth, and hung upon him as if made for someone else entirely.

“Don’t get many strangers along this road,” he added.

The other man was taller, heavier, but had the same darting black eyes, the same ill-fitting clothing. His jaws worked, and then he spat a brown stream at the ground. He said nothing.

“How is it you were expecting me, then?” I asked.

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