commented on the orders, as they had done such things before many times. Darting from one pile of bricks to the next, the companions stayed low and fast, keeping to the sidewalks, pieces of pavement and fallen walls for as much as possible until a few hours later they finally had reached the southern edge of the ruins. Twice along the way they discovered a hidden scorpion, and once a huge millipede. Each time, Dean tracked the muties with his crossbow, but they left the creatures alive. A fresh kill would only attract the buzzards, which could in turn summon the Core.
Now flat, open sand stretched before them, with only some angled dunes rising low on the horizon. The air still carried the sharp tang of salt, and it mixed unpleasantly with the faint stink of the rancid sweat of the companions clothing.
Placing a hand to his forehead to block the bright sunlight, Ryan studied the ground, but there were no more chucks of concrete to use to hide their tracks, not even rocks. From here they had to walk on the bare sand, even though it was the home for the Core.
“Make sure you don’t fragging walk in unison,” he ordered brusquely. “Stop every few yards and pat your boots softly as if it they were hot. These muties can probably hear things from underground and we gotta sound like animals. If they detect marching, they’ll come in force.”
“Especially with the direction we’re taking,” Mildred added, using a cloth to tie back her riot of beaded hair. “I just hope the land to the south actually really is forbidden for them to travel.”
“Only one way to find out,” Dean stated, wiping his neck with a pocket rag. “Once there, we might be safe from attack.”
“If they come, spread out in a circle, not a pack,” J.B. directed, checking the ammo clip in his Uzi machine pistol. “They’ll be striking from underneath, so we need room to track and fire. We bunch up, and we all buy the farm.”
“No prob,” Krysty said, then added, “And if anybody has to piss, do it on your boot to break the force of the stream.”
Testing the point of his Spanish sword on a thumb, Doc chuckled softly at that remark.
“What?” the redhead demanded.
“I beg your pardon for my uncouth laughter, dear lady,” Doc said, sheathing the sword back into the ebony stick. “It had simply occurred to me that if anybody from my time had uttered such a sentence in polite society, men would have gasped, ladies fainted, children screamed, then probably been arrested and hauled off to jail.”
“So nobody pissed back then, eh?” Krysty asked in a teasing manner, resting a fist on her hip.
Doc feigned horror. “Not and admitted to such an action, no, madam. Never! It was unthinkable.”
“And still want go back?” Jak asked, arching a snow-white eyebrow.
“To be with my wife again, yes. But there were many good points, too, Mr. Lauren. Clean beds, hot meals and no muties.” He shrugged. “But no place is perfect. Sadly for us all, there is no Shangri-La, and Brigadoon does not exist.”
“But there are a lot better shitholes than this place,” Ryan said bluntly, tightening the straps on his backpack. It was bastard heavy, but he had added a third belt that went around his hip to help distribute the weight. Hip straps, the pinnacle of preDark science.
“And worse, too,” Ryan continued. “You know that for a fact, Doc. We found you in Mocsin, and you’ve been to Front Royal, which is paradise on Earth in comparison.”
Every trace of humor drained away from his features as Doc recalled the horrors done to him in that truly evil town. “Truth indeed, old friend. I shall forever be in Trader’s debt for what he did to Mocsin.”
“Yeah, Trader cleaned out that pesthole,” J.B. added, setting the brim of his fedora against the sun. “And he’ll do the same to the Core once we link up with him.”
Pressing her canteen to a cheek, Krysty savored the coolness trying to ease her thirst without taking a drink. It was too soon to have another sip, and sucking a pebble wasn’t helping much today. “If it is the Trader,” Krysty countered, forcing herself to lower the water container.
“It’s him,” Ryan stated with conviction, stepping onto the hot sand and starting forward at a broad gait. “Nobody else can make so many folks so pissed off at same time.”
The brief rest break over, the companions broke ranks and spread out in a ragged line across the burning sand, the tiny salt crystals crunching underneath their boots. As the day wore on, the weary travelers stopped talking, almost ceased to think, trying to concentrate solely on placing one foot ahead of other, then break the pattern with a pause and shuffle. Sweat ran down their faces, soaking their armpits, their backs roasted dry from the blazing sun. Each tried to ignore the chafing of their backpacks and their growing thirst, savoring a delicious vision of the cool of the Grandee.
The day wore on in mindless drudgery as the companions went up and down sand dunes like driftwood riding the ocean waves. Occasionally, they would walk across black weeds to muffle their steps. Curiously, they were finding more and more local plant life, some real grass mixed in with the weeds, and a few real cacti dotting the barren landscape. While the rest kept him covered, Doc prodded the first cactus with his sword to make sure it was only a plant, and when nothing happened, the man happily cut off chunks. Badly dehydrated, the people greedily sucked the spongy pulp for every drop of sweet moisture, then very carefully placed the rinds on sloping dunes to roll far away and hide in which direction they were going. The dry wind was efficiently filling their footsteps, and even Jak wasn’t sure that he could have followed anybody into the heart of the desolate land.
Refreshed from the cactus juice, the companions kept moving. The heat of the sun seeped into their bones and made their blasters almost too hot to touch with bare hands, so socks were wrapped around the grips for protection. Then Dean had to unlock his crossbow out of fear the string would break. On they moved, like cyborgs on a programmed task, heedless of anything around them, seeing only the ground before their feet.
Less than a mile later, Ryan whistled softly as he found some more cacti. But the welcome sight turned bitter when it was discovered the plant was really a Drinker, the bones of its victims lying in plain sight.
Traveling up a gentle slope, the companions took a short break and allowed themselves a single capful of warm water.
“And take some salt,” Ryan directed, grimacing at the thought.
Opening a few MRE packs, they shared the little envelopes of iodized powder. It was unpleasant, but vitally necessary. Their clothing was becoming stiff from the salt they lost by sweating so much. If it wasn’t replaced, soon they would get weak, then sleepy and eventually die. Water was all a person wanted in the desert, but salt helped keep a person alive.
Pulling out his minisextant, J.B. took a reading on the sun.
“Nowhere,” he announced, returning the minisextant under his stiff shirt, salt residue marking a white band across the material. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and heading for abso-fragging-lutely nothing.”
“I could have told that,” Jak muttered, brushing his snowy hair forward to help shade his pale face from the painful sunlight.
As they stood on the crested ridge, ahead of them stretched an impossibly flat land utterly devoid of any features whatsoever. Not even a rock or a tumbleweed was in sight. Yet thick
