Axler, James - Deathlands 88 - Alpha Wave by Axler James

Author:Axler, James [Axler, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Men's Adventure, Fiction, General, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780373625987
Publisher: Gold Eagle
Published: 2009-04-15T21:29:35+00:00

as he cocked the hammer. “Your move, White Skin,” he

growled.

Chapter Nineteen

The first thing that Ryan felt when he awoke was the

rushing wind slapping into his face and the burning

pain in his limbs. It felt for all the world like he was

falling, plummeting toward the ground in the way you

will in a dream, that sick feeling in your stomach as you

drop with nowhere to land. But he had woken up now,

and he was still falling, still plummeting without end.

Warily, Ryan opened his good eye. Two parallel steel

lines stretched off into the distance, and to either side

he saw the forbidding landscape of the scarred and

poisoned earth. Above, the sky was dark with fierce,

toxin-heavy clouds, and Ryan could see the land rushing

past him.

He had been bow-spritted, tied to the carved figurehead

of the mutie bitch with the bare breasts and the snake’s

tail that stretched out in front of the massive engine of the

train. Beneath him, the steel tracks glinted in the afternoon

sunlight, just two feet below his hanging body.

The pressure on his arms was almost intolerable.

Ropes had been tied around his wrists and ankles,

securing him to the figurehead at a forty-five-degree

angle, his head thrust forward and the full weight of his

body dangling from those ties. The coarse fibers of the

ropes chafed at him, but already his limbs were falling

into a blessed numbness, all sensation leaving them.

Alpha Wave

239

And so he hung there, buffeted by the wind as the

mighty engine dragged the train across the cancerous

terrain, dust and bugs peppering his naked face as they

were caught up in the draft created by the train’s

passing.

JAK HAD BEEN FORCED to watch as Adam’s men hoisted

Ryan’s body up and tied it to the figurehead at the very

front of the train.

Jak’s own hands had been bound using a leather belt

and there were fifteen sec men, including Adam,

standing nearby, each of them armed and wary of the

lethal albino.

“One-Eye here’ll be hung there till he dies of thirst

or starvation,” Adam explained, “a warning to anyone

who disobeys the baron’s will.” Jak looked at the

scarred face of the CO, identifying the grim satisfaction

he took from his cruel work. “What you think of that,

Whitey?”

Jak sniffed, wondering if he was next. Behind him,

he could hear several of the children crying, and one of

the sec men walked passed him shouting abuse at them

to shut up.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” Adam asked Jak,

yanking him by his mane of white hair and forcing him

to look at the tied figure of Ryan. “You ain’t a mute, I

know that, boy.”

That was it. That was the key, Jak realized suddenly.

“Boy.” The horrifically scarred commanding officer of

the train had called him “boy.” Like the trick with the

knife that he had shown the children, Jak knew that

people would believe what they thought they saw. And

Adam saw him as a boy, a child. As such, Adam would

240

DEATHLANDS

underestimate him, and therein lay his chance. Tied

like this, unable to free his hands, cunning was the only

weapon he had left.

“Stop!” Jak cried out. “Not hurt Pa.”

Adam looked at him, a wicked smile crossing his

lips. “This man’s your pa, that right?”

“Not hurt Pa,” Jak replied.

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