“Plumbing store is next,” he said. “Then we need someplace secure to hide for the night. I need time to make the explos.”
“Already found the perfect spot,” Mildred said, patting a pocket now holding a local street map. “Thick walls, heavy doors, small windows.”
“Jail or library,” Ryan asked, tucking a few candles into a pocket.
“Museum.”
“That’ll do.”
Leaving the store, Dean glanced at the modern lightweight crossbows and fiberglass arrows, started to leave, then doubled back and took one plus a double quiver of razor tipped hunting arrows. The crossbow and quiver combined weighed less than just the homemade crossbow from the ville.
There were several hardware stores in town, and the companions needed to scavenge three before getting every item on the list. However, as they started to leave the building, a sec hunter droid came around the corner, its scissor tipped arms snapping steadily in a mechanical beat. The droid was undamaged, not even scratched. After a moment, it was gone.
“Fireblast, it’s another one,” Ryan cursed softly. “We hit that museum right fucking now. I don’t want to face another of those things without some heavy iron on our side.”
Heading away from the second droid, the companions moved from building to building, watching the darkening shadows carefully, their weapons leveled and ready.
The smell of smoke was getting stronger in the air, the growing fires illuminating the center of the city, casting eerie lights onto the rising black plume. High overhead, the chem clouds rumbled with thunder, and lightning crashed down to strike at the city as if offended by its presence.
The group ceased any further explorations for supplies and headed straight for their bolt hole. Reaching the museum, Krysty noted a swarm of scorpions scuttling along the courtyard of the stately building, each carrying a grisly piece of the past—a finger, an ear.
“Didn’t take them long to get here.” Ryan scowled, watching the scavengers scurry away into the sewer gratings. One arm was full of plumbing supplies, mostly short pipes about a foot long and threaded at both ends, but his gun hand was free and lightly resting on the checkered grip of the SIG-Sauer.
“The smell of this much food is going to attract everything in the desert,” Mildred agreed, fighting a shiver of repulsion. “Buzzards, cougars, stickies, everything.”
“Millipedes,” Dean said with a frown, shifting his load of cleaning supplies. The chems had a lot of uses.
Her hair flexing, Krysty advised, “Let them have the dead. The Great Salt can’t support that much life, and mebbe the scorpions and bugs would have wiped each other out by morning.”
“At least this might mask our presence from the sec hunter,” J.B. said, working on the lock to the steel grille covering the entrance to the museum.
“No,” Ryan said grimly, “it won’t.”
As the grille came aside, they stepped in and J.B. closed the gate, expertly locking it again. Anything that wanted to get to them this way would make a hell of a racket and give them more than enough warning. The wooden front door oddly proved a greater challenge, and J.B. thought he might have to blast for a moment when the corroded lock yielded and the thick portal swung wide.
A rank wind came billowing out like the last breath of a corpse, and the group covered their faces to wait for the building to be flushed with clean air before entering.
Once inside, J.B. bolted the door tight, and the companions spread out to do a quick recce. However, the feeble light of their candles barely touched the vastness of the main room. Then with a cry, Dean turned and fired, the muzzle flash illuminating a snarling mutie coming straight for them!
But the creature didn’t react to being shot, and as Mildred shone the yellow light of her handflash onto the creature, everybody could see its shoulder was blown wide open, with fat tufts of some sort of gray foam coming out.
“Oh, hell, it’s a museum of natural history,” Mildred said, pumping her flashlight to try to brighten the beam. The sign outside had been too badly corroded to read, and the store map had simply listed it as a museum.