Read Online Plague Lords (Empire of Xibalba, #1) by James Axler - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: James Axler
Tags: adventure
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eyes flashed with anger.
Appropriate anger.
The compensation being demanded was outrageous.
Ryan hated like hell to give up one of their precious few cartridges, but he had to keep the bigger picture in mind. They’d come a long way and they needed to drink now and rehydrate if they were going to be clearheaded when they got down to the business of bartering their loot. “We’ll pay it,” he said. “Give the boy a round, J.B.”
The Armorer ejected a live shell from his scattergun. He handed it to the kid, who checked the primer and shook the shell next to his grimy ear. His eyes lit up and he smiled gaptoothed at his mama.
“Go on,” she said, gesturing with the flash hider and ramp sight of the battered AK.
The companions took turns at the bucket, drinking their fill. The water was sweet, cool and fairly clean.
When they were done, Krysty said to Mama, “We paid you for the water, now what do we owe you for the air?”
At a signal from their mother, the kids kicked over the rest of the bucket on the ground. That was followed by a caustic stream of profanity and death threats from the tiny family.
“Friendly town, isn’t it?” Mildred remarked as they carefully backed away and continued on.
“Make no mistake about it,” Ryan said, his voice deadly cold, “this isn’t your run-of-the-mill hellpit. This is the radblasted end of the line, the last outpost on the Gulf coast before the Dallas-Houston death zone. Folks don’t end up in Port A ville by choice. They end up here because they were driven out of the eastern baronies on account of who they were or what they did. I’m talking about the lowest of low—diseased gaudy sluts, jolt fiends, coldheart robbers and crazy chillers. The traders who come through here specialize in looting the interior’s hotspots, and robbing the scroungers who got there first. They’re used to taking the biggest risks, to chilling first and never asking questions after. Keep your eyes open and your blaster hands free. From now on, we’re triple red.”
After another couple of miles of deserted gridwork streets and sprawling ruination, they came to the intersection of two main roads, and in the near distance, the remains of an enormous predark shopping center. Almost all of its structures lay in piles of fractured concrete. There was no telling what had brought the buildings down: storms from the Gulf, earthquake, flood, demolition. Any or all of it was possible.
The parking lots were covered in layers of dried mud and in places trees grew up through cracks in the asphalt. Visible from a quarter mile away, four huge letters hung crooked on a concrete-block building’s lone surviving wall.
“They sold ‘ears’?” Jak wondered out loud.
“No,” Mildred said. “No, the S must’ve fallen off. It’s Sears.”
Before she could elaborate, Ryan urged them on. “Let’s keep moving,” he said. “We’ve still got some ground to cover.”
Maintaining the 450-yard buffer, he led them over swampy, trash-littered, former backyards and between cinder-block foundations, filled with stagnant, black water, around to the west side of the mall. From this angle, they could see almost all of the complex’s connecting interior corridors and colonnades had collapsed in on themselves. A single big-box store was still standing.
“That’s BoomT’s,” Ryan told the others as he signaled a halt.
The entrance to the three-story building was shielded by a pair of Winnebagos sitting on their rusting wheel rims. A mob of people waited in the heat to pass single file through the gap between the RVs. Some wore heavy backpacks; some stowed their trade goods in homemade wags and dog carts. Those were the small-timers. There was a separate queue for big-time traders—a lineup of horse-drawn carts, motorcycles, pack mules and tethered-human bearers at the back bumper of the Winnebago on the right, along the building’s windowless facade. Everybody stood under the watch of crude
Appropriate anger.
The compensation being demanded was outrageous.
Ryan hated like hell to give up one of their precious few cartridges, but he had to keep the bigger picture in mind. They’d come a long way and they needed to drink now and rehydrate if they were going to be clearheaded when they got down to the business of bartering their loot. “We’ll pay it,” he said. “Give the boy a round, J.B.”
The Armorer ejected a live shell from his scattergun. He handed it to the kid, who checked the primer and shook the shell next to his grimy ear. His eyes lit up and he smiled gaptoothed at his mama.
“Go on,” she said, gesturing with the flash hider and ramp sight of the battered AK.
The companions took turns at the bucket, drinking their fill. The water was sweet, cool and fairly clean.
When they were done, Krysty said to Mama, “We paid you for the water, now what do we owe you for the air?”
At a signal from their mother, the kids kicked over the rest of the bucket on the ground. That was followed by a caustic stream of profanity and death threats from the tiny family.
“Friendly town, isn’t it?” Mildred remarked as they carefully backed away and continued on.
“Make no mistake about it,” Ryan said, his voice deadly cold, “this isn’t your run-of-the-mill hellpit. This is the radblasted end of the line, the last outpost on the Gulf coast before the Dallas-Houston death zone. Folks don’t end up in Port A ville by choice. They end up here because they were driven out of the eastern baronies on account of who they were or what they did. I’m talking about the lowest of low—diseased gaudy sluts, jolt fiends, coldheart robbers and crazy chillers. The traders who come through here specialize in looting the interior’s hotspots, and robbing the scroungers who got there first. They’re used to taking the biggest risks, to chilling first and never asking questions after. Keep your eyes open and your blaster hands free. From now on, we’re triple red.”
After another couple of miles of deserted gridwork streets and sprawling ruination, they came to the intersection of two main roads, and in the near distance, the remains of an enormous predark shopping center. Almost all of its structures lay in piles of fractured concrete. There was no telling what had brought the buildings down: storms from the Gulf, earthquake, flood, demolition. Any or all of it was possible.
The parking lots were covered in layers of dried mud and in places trees grew up through cracks in the asphalt. Visible from a quarter mile away, four huge letters hung crooked on a concrete-block building’s lone surviving wall.
“They sold ‘ears’?” Jak wondered out loud.
“No,” Mildred said. “No, the S must’ve fallen off. It’s Sears.”
Before she could elaborate, Ryan urged them on. “Let’s keep moving,” he said. “We’ve still got some ground to cover.”
Maintaining the 450-yard buffer, he led them over swampy, trash-littered, former backyards and between cinder-block foundations, filled with stagnant, black water, around to the west side of the mall. From this angle, they could see almost all of the complex’s connecting interior corridors and colonnades had collapsed in on themselves. A single big-box store was still standing.
“That’s BoomT’s,” Ryan told the others as he signaled a halt.
The entrance to the three-story building was shielded by a pair of Winnebagos sitting on their rusting wheel rims. A mob of people waited in the heat to pass single file through the gap between the RVs. Some wore heavy backpacks; some stowed their trade goods in homemade wags and dog carts. Those were the small-timers. There was a separate queue for big-time traders—a lineup of horse-drawn carts, motorcycles, pack mules and tethered-human bearers at the back bumper of the Winnebago on the right, along the building’s windowless facade. Everybody stood under the watch of crude
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