Norm's face became even uglier. "Shut your hole, Budd, before I shut it for you."

The disfigured man walked into the dimly lit room, where Alton Adrian was tied to a rickety kitchen chair. The man had been stripped naked, his long hair and beard the only covering on his entire body. A dirty gag was wadded into his mouth. The areas of exposed skin showed evidence of the loving touches laid upon him by his stickie captors.

Norm began walking around the terrified bound man in a slow, lazy circle. "Most of the problems I've ever had to deal with in Deathlands come from people trespa.s.sing," he said. "Going where they don't belong. There's ways of making jack doing thisif you find them on your land or using your stuff, you charge them a fee. Make them pay. Used to get my joint sucked two or three times a week when I was a mercie running a toll road. See, if they didn't have the jack, well, I made those going on through pay in different ways."

"Who are you?" the scavie asked in a weak voice m.u.f.fled by the gag.

From behind Adrian, his captor spoke softly, in a near whisper "No questions. I'm talking now. You were over at the old hospital, my friend. Round in the same area where six of my men disappeared a few days back. Now, I'm sure you'll agree that stickies are not the most brilliant of the many n.o.ble creatures roaming Deathlands, and perhaps they got lost or ran off or even found a room and ended up locking themselves in. I don't know. All I have is the evidence in front of me, and that's you."

Norm reached down and cupped Adrian's chin with a hand covered in scars. His fingernails were long and sharp, jagged and uneven. He moved his hand up and ripped the gag out of his prisoner's mouth.

Adrian inhaled deeply, the smell of rotting flesh flowing into his lungs as he breathed. He gagged, but kept his composure as best he could.

"One of my friends says you have information to barter for your own miserable life," Norm said.

"Y-yeah."

"What is that information?"

The scavenger paused, wondering if he could talk his way through being chilled on the spot. "I know what happened to those six stickies."

Norm's one bulging eye seemed to grow larger in the broken socket of his face. "Do you, now?"

"They're chilled. All of them."

"How?"

"They were chilled by a man named Ryan Cawdor."

The utterance of the name had a most curious and unexpected effect on the scarred man standing before the helpless Alton Adrian. The mention of Cawdor caused Norm to twist his once burned fingers into a bony fist and strike out, catching Adrian full in the mouth. The skin on his knuckles peeled back from the gap where the scavenger's front teeth were missing, making Norm bleed freely. The force from the surprise blow caused the chair to tip over on one side.

"You stinkin' liar!" Norm cried, kicking Adrian in the ribs. "No f.u.c.king way is One-eye here! No f.u.c.king way!"

All of the control, all of the posing, all of the attempts to pa.s.s himself off as something more than man or mutie had been erased the moment Ryan's name came into the picture. Norm was gone, and in his place was Johnson Lester, the cowardly sec man who'd encountered Ryan twice before.

Lester, who blamed Ryan for the downfall of Willie ville, and for his own miserable luck in being forced to work the wheel, and being caught when the ville was blown apart.

Lester, who'd been saved by a stickie and traveled to Winston in hopes to staking his own claim to power.

Lester, who was now undeniably insane.

"Sure," Adrian replied, speaking through his split upper lip. "Sure, he's here. Ryan Cawdor, or One-eye, with the eye patch, and J. B. Dix, and the albino, and the old fart they call Doc, and the woman with red hair"

"Mutie!" Lester screamed, cutting Adrian off. "She's a mutie b.i.t.c.h wh.o.r.e!"

"All of them killed those stickies," the scavie said. "Now they're in Freedom. Working sec. Mall's been getting ripped by stickie attacks. Got them to help. Heard about that right before leaving Freedom yesterday."

Adrian was talking faster now, hoping he'd be freed. He spoke of frozen heads and hidden loot, but quickly went back to Ryan when his captor demanded to know more. He'd switched the man's attention to another object of hate. He'd given him information. Perhaps he'd managed to talk his way clear, and if so, he was getting the h.e.l.l out of North Carolina as fast as he could run, and going all the way back to Georgia, and to his family, and his home.

And when Adrian finally fell silent, his throat raw and aching, Lester had crawled back into whatever mental cubby hole the scarred man kept his former persona tucked away in and the much cooler Norm had come back out and was driving the wag.

"You were correct, Mr. Adrian," Norm said, cool, calm, collected. "Your information has proved most valuable."

Alton dared another question. "Can I have my clothes?"

"Why? Of what use are they to you now?" Adrian's stomach turned to ice, as cold and hard as any of the men frozen solid in the cryo laboratory he'd seen before.

"Need my clothes to leave," he stammered. "I I'm leaving this hole and never coming back."

"Well, you're right about one thing. I do indeed doubt you are ever coming back," Norm said, smiling cruelly as he opened the door to the earthen cell and waved in the two waiting stickies. The muties effortlessly lifted the scavenger and the chair he was bound to between them and followed Norm out of the door. And then it was Adrian's turn to scream, cry and curse as his own inner demons and fears came scuttling out, unleashed and gibbering as he was carried into the center of the cavernous tobacco warehouse and dropped painfully to the floor. The wooden chair splintered and broke, and he was free, his arms and legs tangled in strands of wire. He rolled in the dust, struggling in the dimly lit area to stand erect.

How could his big score have gone so badly? He'd only wanted a second look at the cryo chambers for himself and now he'd succeeded in chilling himself.

He got to his feet and saw the circle of the stickies closing around him.

"Please," he begged, weeping, tears running down his cheeks and into his beard. His cut lips started to bleed from Norm's sucker punch once more. "Please!"

The smell of the blood from the injured human made the circle of stickies anxious. Norm stepped forward from the circle, carrying a small metal canister painted in deep green.

"Do you know what is inside this container?" he asked to a chorus of oohs and aahs.

Two stickies hesitantly raised their hands, like obedient pupils in a cla.s.sroom.

"Not you, dammit," Norm growled. "I was talking to our guest."

Adrian didn't answer.

"Come now, you're a scavie!" Norm needled him, holding out the canister like the eager host of a pre-dark game show. "You've seen this before! Inform us!"

The naked man continued to cry.

"I take it back," Norm snorted, raking his gaze over his brethren. "As bad as you stickies get, at least you don't s.h.i.t yourself and start sniveling when your number is up."

Norm stepped up to the weeping Adrian and grabbed him by the hair, pulling hard, making the man crane his neck and fall back as he looked up into the horribly disfigured man's eyes, which seemed to be glowing with a malevolent evil. Adrian looked up and knew in his heart he was viewing the devil himself.

"This, friend Alton, is a container filled with black powder. As I'm sure you've heard, what with your thriving career in information exchange, that stickies have developed most unusual ways of using this substance for their own amus.e.m.e.nt. A cut here, a stab there, and fill the hole with powder. Or if one doesn't want to make a hole, one can use some of the other orifices of the human body. Eye sockets, ears, the nose, mouth. A particular favorite is ramming a heaping helping of powder up a man's a.s.s and lighting a fuse. Boom! Blows his c.o.c.k clear across the room!" The gathered stickies began to gibber and talk among themselves, waiting for the word. Norm turned to them to grin and wallow in the sensation of power, still keeping his grip on the scavie's hair.

"If the powder disturbs you, we can try some other stickie game. Perhaps tie you down spread-eagle, and push thumbtacks in your eyes. Push straight pins under your fingernails, into your b.a.l.l.s. Take a knife and cut you to pieces, a bit at a time. There are always alternatives."

Adrian was listening and decided Norm was right. He reached up, grabbing the scarred man's hand that gripped his hair. He grabbed the hand with both of his own, and pulled with all of his fading strength. Norm fell flat, dropping the powder and losing his hold on his prisoner's hair. Adrian rolled over on his captor and began to throttle him with both hands.

"If I die, you're going with me!" he screamed as he squeezed as hard as he could, willing all of his own hate and fear into the man below him.

His last, desperate ploy never stood a chance.

The stickies fell upon him from all sides, their terrible clinging hands adhering and lifting, tearing his body and flesh in all directions in a ma.s.sive display of carnage. Red blood and white bone; tan skin shredded and burst purple internal organs, all on display as the man was disemboweled and eviscerated like a fleshy pinata by the mutie pack's horrible abilities.

Budd helped Norm to his feet as the other stickies paraded the various body parts of Alton Adrian around the warehouse.

"Tonight," Norm stated. "We go tonight."

"Not ready," Budd tried to protest. "We need time."

"Cawdor is in there, laughing at me. We go tonight. I'm chilling him personally! We go tonight!"

Chapter Twenty-Two.

After two days of their a.s.signed duties, everyone in Ryan's group was bored with the riches offered by Freedom Mall. Even with their newly enhanced positions as sec men, there was nothing free in the way of entertainment. Sleeping, eating, relaxingit all came with a price, and the price wasn't cheap. Still, there were distractions. "Haven't been down this part of the mall before," Mildred said to her two companions. "What's the map say?"

J.B. took out a folded pocket guide to Freedom and consulted the layout. "Multiplex."

"You mean movies?" Mildred asked. "Yeah. Reckon so."

"A theater! Splendid! Perhaps we can hope for a cla.s.sic from days gone by? A brightly colored musical with the likes of Kelly or Astaire? A moody film noir with Bogart or Cagney, or even that femme fatale Barbara Stanwick, leading poor, baffled Fred MacMurray to his own l.u.s.t-caused doom?"

J.B. turned to Doc with a look of mock surprise. "Didn't know you gave a d.a.m.n for movies, Doc. Thought you hated them."

Doc shook his head vigorously. "Incorrect! False! Not true! What I hate, John Barrymore, is television. Puerile dribble to sell boxes of soap! But this, this is a movie palace, and for once I shall view a motion picture at the scale the makers intended instead of viewing them via a vid player on snow-enhanced tape."

"I doubt that, Doc," Mildred said as they approached the front of the theater. There were slots out front for movie posters and announcements, but all hung empty or blank. A single tube-shaped box office could be spotted on a slight incline, and behind the office was the door into the concession stand and lobby. Very efficient and very bland.

"This is one of those concrete-bunker affairs. Small screen, small seats, small portions at the concession stand. The only thing big about a mall cinema is the prices."

"Small screen?" Doc said, his expression one of disbelief. "Why on earth would a theater proprietor want to vex his patrons with a small screen?"

"Economics," Mildred replied. "Smaller the setup, the more screens you can cram into a s.p.a.ce. Smaller seats means more warm bodies. Why run one show when you can run six, then sell six times the amount of overpriced concessions at the same time?"

"Disgraceful," Doc said. "I'd always been under the impression there was something romantic about the movies in their natural habitat."

"There is," Mildred mused. "There's nothing like seeing a movie on a big screen."

"I wouldn't know," Doc sniffed.

"Me, neither," J.B. added. "Seen some in villes on old 16 mm projectors. Hard to see and hear."

"Next show's at nine o'clock. What time is it?" Mildred asked.

J.B. checked his wrist chron. "About ten minutes to. We got the time and the extra mall creds to see a picture, if you want. We don't go on sec patrol until we meet up with Ryan and the others at midnight."

"I wonder if they have popcorn?" Mildred asked.

"From my understanding, it wouldn't be a proper motion-picture palace if it didn't," Doc said as they approached the gla.s.sed-in area marked Box Office.

"What movie is playing?" Mildred asked the man sitting behind the gla.s.s through a small metal grid. He was dressed in a crushed-velvet vest and matching bow tie. An employee tag identifying him as Boston hung from the breast pocket of his vest.

"You'll love it, lady," Boston replied. "Ripping good horror show. Zombies come back from the dead to feast on the human flesh of the living. Great gore with some hilarious comedy. Slapstick, is what I've heard it called. Sells out every time we screen it."

Doc's hopes of a musical comedy were swiftly being dashed upon the unyielding rocks of commerce.

"Most disturbing. When was this film made?" the old man asked.

The ticket salesman paused for a moment and closed his eyes, as if accessing a bank of data files stored on the hard drive of his brain.

" Dawn of the Dead . 1979 predark calendar. A Laurel production. A United Film Distribution release. Full color. Running time of 126 minutes uncut, or significantly shorter in the cable edit, and who the f.u.c.k wants to see the censored version anyway, so it doesn't count."

"A full two hours plus," J.B. said approvingly as a man who loved a bargain. "Not bad."

The ticket seller continued to speak, unaware or uncaring of J.B.'s approval. "Written, directed and edited by the great George A. Romero, who also gave us Stephen King's Creepshow, Martin, Day of the Dead and many other fine horror pictures. Cinematography by Michael Gornick. Music by the Goblins with Dario Argento. Sequel to the cla.s.sic Night of the Living Dead , which is pretty good, but it's in black and white, and the only version I've seen was fuzzy as h.e.l.l, so the blood and guts look all fake."

"For Christ's sake," Mildred said to her two companions, "I can see this kind of c.r.a.p on an all-too-regular basis in Deathlands. Why would I want to go to a movie and pay good money to experience it?"

"Nothing else better to do," J.B. replied.

"Aren't you showing anything else?" she asked Boston.

The man shook his head. "Lady, at this moment we only have four movies in complete enough condition to screen Dawn of the Dead, Mannequin 2 on the Move, Spy Hard and Escape from New York . This theater rotates them on a monthly basis. Every once in a while, I'll pull out chunks of other flicks I've spliced together from stray film cans just so we can offer something different, but most of our customers want a complete show, and I can't blame them. Plenty enough vids with a beginning, middle and end to keep their interest at home. We have to try and make coming to a movie theater a special experience."

"Ironic, isn't it, Doc?" Mildred said.

"What?"

"Back in the fifties, television nearly ran movie theaters out of business. Producers had to come up with all kinds of gimmicks and sensationalism to keep attendance levels high. Wide screens. Quad sound. Fake insurance policies sold at the door in case you or a loved one dropped dead of fright while watching the film."

"Sounds like a sideshow to me," Doc said.

"Show business is show business," Mildred replied. "Until the advent of home video in the late seventies, the movie industry had become a mere ghost of what it once had been. Once home vid players come into vogue, there was money all around. Financially a profit could be made not only on tickets sold, but also on vid rights, cable, network-television rights and so on."

"I think I understand. Here we are, one-hundred-plus years later, and most physical films capable of being viewed on the big screen have been destroyed"

"But videotapes of the movies survive. Exactly," Mildred finished.

"So, we going or not?" J.B. asked.

Mildred looked at the fellow manning the ticket booth. "This place sell popcorn?" she asked.

WHILE MILDRED, DOC and J.B. were preparing to enjoy a movie, Ryan, Jak and Krysty were on duty in the small sec headquarters in the back of the mall. The monitor board in the sec room burst into vibrant color, with an incessant warning alarm.

"What the f.u.c.k is that?" Ryan asked, instantly alert as he leaped to his feet.

"Motion sensors," a techie in a blue jumpsuit replied. "We've got intruders up on the roof."

"Show me."