Free Baptism of Rage by James Axler Page B

light playing across the cracks. Beside him, Charles Torino held the reins, urging his tired horses onward with occasional words of encouragement. They were somewhere still in Tennessee. It was scrubland here now, where once farms and thriving towns had been. Crows flew above, cawing discordantly to one another, swooping down to perch on the struggling saplings that had emerged from ashlike soil. When they landed, the soot-feathered crows seemed so heavy as to almost topple the scrawny, young saplings. The crows waited, watching the convoy of wags pass like a jury deliberating its verdict on the accused as they were paraded before them.
    Doc closed his eyes, feeling the yellow warmth of the sun beating down through the cracked windshield, painting patterns on the inside of his eyelids. The heat was good, a simple delight harkening back to a more innocent age. Charles was saying something beside him, speaking to his horses, but Doc ignored him, tuning out the man’s throaty voice. Behind him, in the back of the wag, Mildred and Mary were talking about the wildlife, about favorite things, foods and beverages, meaningless stuff to pass the time. Baby Holly snuffled now and then in her sleep.
    They were getting slowly closer to Babyville, and its mythical pool of rejuvenation.
    Doc thought back to the conversation he had had with Ryan that morning, after he had finished shaving in the dingy bathroom of the inn, and then back to the discussion in the trading post with its tethered goats andtethered dancing girls. The conversation played out in his mind’s eye, Doc himself trying to justify his need to pursue the promise of Babyville.
     
    D OC WAS EXPLAINING Croxton’s proposition to his companions, but J.B. kept dismissing his words, waving his hand in front of his face as though swatting at a fly.
    “Nobody’s getting any younger, Doc,” J.B. said gruffly.
    Angered, Doc looked around the table for support from his other companions. Ryan Cawdor’s single blue eye seemed to stare right through him, noncommittal. Mildred was shaking her head apologetically and, beside her, Krysty Wroth had her hands in her mutie hair, brushing at it as though disinterested in the whole discussion. As he watched, Doc saw chalk-white dust falling from her hair, peppering the table like the falling snow.
    Doc turned to the last seat at the table. A beautiful blonde woman sat there, gazing back at him, affection and devotion in her crystal-clear blue eyes. Beautiful and shapely, the woman was still so young, a child’s innocence characterizing her face.
    “I believe you, Doc,” the woman said, her voice holding that musical quality that he thought he had forgotten. “I’ll follow you.” Lori Quint.
    “Not like I follow Keeper,” the blonde woman—Lori—said. “I follow because you’re so good to me.”
    Without even realizing, Doc was reaching over the table then, reaching for Lori, pulling her toward him, enveloping her in his arms. It had been so long since he had seen her. Why was that?
    But she wasn’t Lori now. She was the old-young girl from the convoy, Daisy, smiling up at him with her round, puppy-fat face.
    “I believe in you,” Daisy-Lori said, gazing at Doc with wide, innocent eyes, her long hair falling across her face.
    With tenderness, Doc pushed the sun-yellow hair out of the girl’s eyes. As he did, he saw his companions watching him, disapprovingly.
    But they were no longer the companions he knew. These were older, skeletal, no skin left on their bones—just fleshless, dead things. Fleshless dead things with staring, judgmental eyes boring into his. Krysty’s red hair fell away from her white skull in clumps as her bone hands brushed through it. Mildred slumped in her seat as her neck bones crumbled to dust with the way she was shaking her head back and forth in disagreement. J.B. Dix’s jaw worked up and down, up and down, saying nothing, only the noise of creaking bones wearing against one another, crumbling