Free Deathlands 124: Child of Slaughter by James Axler Page A

sinking through the sand alongside the muties, he’d fallen through some kind of open space, then suddenly splashed down in water. He paddled madly now, struggling instinctively to keep from going under, though the truth was, he couldn’t breathe above the surface, either. He’d inhaled enough quicksand on the way down to clog his nose and throat and lungs with smothering muck.
    His eyes were wide as he thrashed and suffocated, but there was only pitch-darkness all around. If the muties were there with him, he couldn’t see a trace of them.
    He started to feel light-headed and heavy at the same time. One last frenzy of kicking and gyrating, and his movements began to slow; he pulled his hands in to clutch his throat, and his body drifted downward.
    All sense left his oxygen-starved brain as the water rose to cover him. His vision danced with sparks, and then mysteriously cleared and brightened. He saw the faces of his wife and children from his life in the nineteenth century, beaming and waving for him to come closer.
    The last expression on his face as he went under was a smile, even as his body spasmed and stiffened without air.
    Then, suddenly, hands grabbed hold of his upper arms and wrenched him back up again. Dazed and almost certainly dying, Doc was barely conscious of the hands asthey dragged him through the water. Was he being pulled onto some kind of surface, some kind of dry land at the edge of the water? He couldn’t be sure.
    Whatever was happening to him, he dropped out of consciousness like a shotgunned bird, plummeting into absolute darkness. Even the faces of Emily, Rachel and Jolyon were lost to him; he was racing finally into the limitless night, giving up the earthly suffering that had been his lot for far too long.
    Or not. With the same shocking force with which he’d hit the freezing water, Doc rocketed out of the mindless blackness. Someone pounded his back again and again, and Doc gagged up quicksand in great muddy gouts.
    As he retched up the garbage stuffed into his respiratory system, Doc became aware that he was on his knees on a rocky slab. He didn’t have long to consider it between blows to his back, though; they came so hard and fast that they scattered his thoughts as well as ejected the gritty clods.
    Finally, enough of the matter was expelled that Doc’s airway opened partially. Without thinking, he sucked in a giant breath of cold air that immediately revived him.
    And then the hand smacked his back again, and he continued coughing up quicksand.
    Eventually, though, the hand stopped striking. Doc gagged out some more gunk, then slumped forward, breathing almost normally again.
    At that moment, he heard a familiar voice in his ear. “Welcome back.” It was Ankh. “You need to hold your breath better next time.” He chuckled softly.
    Doc turned toward him but couldn’t see a thing. Wherever they were, there didn’t seem to be a trace of light to be found. “What… Where…?” Forcing out words took an effort and triggered a fresh coughing jag.
    When it faded, Ankh patted him on the back. “You’ll see in just a moment.”
    As he said it, a loud boom echoed through the place, followed by a sound like the crackling of sparks from a downed power line. Off in the distance, Doc glimpsed a lonely twinkle that was quickly doused then followed by several more, flickering to life at scattered points. These guttered, too, and were replaced by others that also died, and then, suddenly, a brilliant light blazed to life.
    In spite of his continued discomfort and hacking, Doc gazed in wonder at the scene before him. He was at the edge of an enormous cavern filled with a lake of crystal clear water. The walls and ceiling were lined with a web of brightly glowing filaments, the source of the illumination that had blown away the previously impenetrable darkness.
    As Doc watched, the band of muties frolicked in the shallows at the fringe of a lake, laughing and splashing one another. Their