Deathlands 122: Forbidden Trespass Read Free Page A

in a weapons locker in what seemed to be the main office area. As far as they could tell, the structure had been built as a command center for some kind of mining operation nearby, whose nature they hadn’t managed to discover, and all traces of which appeared to have been obliterated by earth upheavals and more than a hundred years of weather.
    They couldn’t use the cans of 5.56 mm bullets, since they lacked blasters that fired them. But there was a cache of 9 mm, 12-gauge, .45 ACP and 7.62 mm ammo that took care of replenishing their stocks for most of the armament they carried.
    They found no .38 Special cartridges for the Czech ZKR 551 target revolver Mildred insisted on toting, even though that caliber was relatively common, nor anything for Doc’s enormous LeMat. “If we find blasters, will we trade them?” Ricky asked.
    J.B. grunted. “Locals favor black-powder blasters,” hesaid, “mostly single-shot break-action shotguns or even muzzle-loaders. I kind of like the edge our firepower gives us over their smoke-poles, myself.”
    Ryan nodded.
    “They’re not that friendly,” he agreed. “Anyway, if we find modern blasters, they’ll be well worth humping out of here when we shake the limestone dust of this place off our boot heels.”
    “Not soon, I hope,” Krysty said. “The work here’s hard, but at least we have a sheltered spot to live while we’re doing it.”
    “Think this would be a good place to put down roots, Krysty?” Mildred asked in a bantering tone.
    The taller woman shrugged. “It’s always been my dream,” she said, a faraway look in her emerald-green eyes. “To find someplace we can make a life.”
    “Node’ll play out soon enough,” Ryan told her. “And I don’t see us as dirt farmers, anyway.”
    To his surprise he saw sadness in her face. “Sorry, lover,” he said. “I know that’s a sore spot for you. Reckon I shouldn’t go poking it.”
    Mildred made an apologetic noise in her throat. “Yeah. My bad. I shouldn’t tease you about it, Krysty.”
    She shook her head, making the beaded plaits in her hair clack together.
    “The fact is,” she said, “we could all use a break.”
    “What do you think this is, Millie?” J.B. asked.
    She scowled but, for once, couldn’t find an appropriate comeback.
    “What about our mysterious friends up there?” Ricky asked, uneasily waving a hand.
    “They’re probably just figments of our overworked imaginations.”
    She stopped speaking abruptly, gazing upward, her eyes growing wide.
    Something grazed Ryan’s cheek on the blind side.
    * * *
    “G ET DOWN !” K RYSTY heard Ryan shout. She wheeled to see him following his own command, diving to the rubble-choked slope with his SIG Sauer in hand.
    “Oh my God, I see them too!” she heard Mildred yell.
    That was more than enough for Krysty. She whipped out her Glock 18C with the efficiency of frequent habit and threw herself down, as well. She was glad for the halter top confining her breasts offering at least some protection from the corner of a chunk of concrete that dug into her left one.
    The bushes surrounding the pit were thrashing. Rocks and sticks were flying from them, thrown by unseen hands at the group. Unfortunately, despite the trees shielding them from casual discovery, the excavation was approximately the worst possible tactical situation to put themselves into. Everybody who knew where they were and wished them harm had the high ground.
    Grinning, Jak reached into his jacket. His right hand came out wrapped inside the knuckle-duster hilt of a trench knife. The left whipped one of his butterfly knives open in a blur of precision. He started to move toward the attackers. “Jak, no!” Mildred yelled. “They look too much like you! We might shoot you by mistake!”
    The young man froze. Right then Krysty caught a flash of a face peering at her from a gap in the screen of underbrush. To her shock it looked like the bleached-bone white of Jak’s face, and the