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Mildred was quickest. "It's a geyser," she shouted. "Doc figures it's about to
blow. If it does"
Doc had Dean by the hand, tugging him up the slope, the boy still bewildered,
resisting the old man.
"Run, son!" Ryan yelled. "Boiling fountain about to blow up behind you!"
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Abe started toward the couple to try to help, but his feet skidded away from
under him and he fell, yelping in alarm. Arms spread to try to save himself,
he was rolling directly toward Doc and Dean, but he managed to grab hold of a
spur of rock and pulled himself upright just before crashing into them.
Ryan looked at the pool, cursing his own lack of attention in such a hostile
land. The level was much higher, and it was bubbling and steaming. The surface
of the liquid surged and roiled with the unbelievable pressures beneath the
earth.
"Keep back, friends!" Doc panted, now over halfway toward the crest. Now they
could all hear.
A sullen roar that they could feel vibrated through their feet, like a
long-caged beast thrusting up toward the murky sunlight.
The water in the dark pool was becoming violently agitated, swelling higher,
then sulking back for a few heartbeats, then rising to twice its original
height. Ryan had checked quickly where the prevailing wind was, knowing that
even a light breeze could carry the boiling droplets for fifty yards or more.
Now Doc and the boy were close enough for helping hands to tug them up and
over the top, pausing for a moment to gather breath. "Farther!" the old man
panted.
They were less than a dozen yards away from the highest point of the rocky
bowl when the geyser finally blew.
Everyone dived flat, covering heads, ears and faces, J.B. making certain that
the Uzi and the Smith amp;
Wesson M-4000 were both safely beneath his body.
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Deathlands 26 - Shadowfall
Ryan risked a glance over his shoulder, seeing the great column of boiling
water and superheated steam surge upward, at least a hundred and fifty feet in
the air, its top drifting away from them on the small wind.
The noise was deafening, and the ground trembled beneath them, hot water
splashing all around.
But Doc's reflexes had been just fast enough to save all of them from what
could have been very unpleasant injuries from the geyser.
And fast enough, beyond any doubt, to save the life of Dean Cawdor.
Ryan clasped Doc's hand, feeling the way that the old man was shaking, from
the shock and from the exertion. "Well done," he said. "And thanks."
Dean, soaking wet, was wiping water from his eyes. "You saved my life, Doc."
"What friends are for, dear boy." He blushed slightly. "Just what friends are
for."
"LOOKS LIKE WE'RE GETTING toward the end of this hot-springs part," Ryan said.
They'd stopped again, a quarter mile of winding trail farther on. The rad
counter was now showing only the palest of yellow, shading toward the green of
safety, indicating that the worst of the missiles had fallen very near the
coast of California, triggering the quakes and letting in the ocean. Here,
much closer to the Sierras, it was cleaner and safer.
There was still that deceptive alkaline crust on one side of the trail, and
bubbling mud on the other. But it really did look as though the rising ground
just ahead of them was going to be the end of the bad times.
They were strung out in the usual single skirmish line, Ryan taking a turn at
the rear, with J.B. in the lead.
The path doglegged sharply to the right, in front of them, round a
sulfur-stained bluff with hot water streaming down it.
J.B. suddenly held up a hand, seeing a number of figures running toward him,
through the mist-wraiths, waving spears and daggers.
Simultaneously Ryan glanced behind, seeing if their line of retreat was open
and safe.
It wasn't.
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At least a dozen more men were charging silently, the nearest less than a
dozen yards away.
It was a perfect ambush.
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Deathlands 26 - Shadowfall
Chapter Thirteen
There was the brief moment of recognition.
Ryan didn't even have time to breathe the word "scabbies" before the first of
the muties was on top of him. But his eye had sent that message through to his
memory and brain.
Scabbies were a particularly repulsive type of mutie, often considered to be
some kind of offshoot of the more common stickies. But they were found more
often near regions where there were many nuke hot spots, combined with some
kind of local climate or conditions that had bred the disgustingly hideous
skin diseases that gave them their name.
They were generally believed to be a little more intelligent than
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