“Sure,” Ryan said.
There was a crowbar leaning against the nearest case. The Armorer took it up and started to jimmy open the closest chest, tearing the nails out, splintering the white wood. Inside was a layer of greased foil, and J.B. pulled that away so they could see what was inside.
They opened five cases altogether, but they were all the same. Ryan couldn’t stop laughing at the look on J.B.’s face. There they were, all in rows, all in a thin coat of grease to protect them through eternity and beyond.
Something like three hundred thousand black plastic zippers.
Chapter Five
RYAN WHISTLED SOFTLY between his teeth, considering all the options, failing to find one that looked even remotely worth trying.
The right fork of the corridor had finished in a blank dead end only fifty yards or so from the sliding entrance to the stores. Retracing their steps, they rounded the first bend to the left and found themselves faced with a dark section of the passage completely blocked by a massive earthslide.
That seemed to limit which direction they could go. The section of the stores where they’d found the fur coats led only to the totally wrecked sec door; Ryan knew they didn’t have enough explosives to shift it. There was no other way out, and they could go neither forward or back.
It didn’t look good.
“Figure there’s enough stuff to eat an’ drink to keep us alive for a week. Mebbe ten to twelve days if we’re real careful,” J.B. said.
“If we get through the slip, we should be somewheres round the place where the corridor passes the broken door. Should loop around,” Ryan said.
“That looks like it’s about a mile wide,” Finn grunted, spitting in the dust.
Jak suddenly dropped to his hands and knees, staring intently at the floor where Finnegan’s saliva had landed.
The others looked at him, puzzled, until Ryan also noticed what the boy had spotted.
“Fireblast! Look. Footprints. Those muties have been along here. Means there’s some way in or out.”
“And the air’s fresh,” Lori exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight.
“Let me,” Jak said, not waiting for a reply as he scampered up the shadowed pile of gray-orange dirt and picked his way through the tumbled heaps of concrete and twisted steel. His newly acquired sectioned spear rattled on the stones as he went. When he reached the top, it was hard to see him, but his snow-white hair flared like a magnesium beacon.
“Yeah. Like other. Narrow, but dark. Can’t see through.” His voice was muted and they watched him disappear.
“Jak!” Ryan shouted. “Come back. We’ll all go if’n it’s safe.”
The boy reappeared, his red eyes seeming to glow like rubies. “Yeah. Be tight for some.” He stared pointedly at Finnegan. “But we can do it. Goes up at an angle. Seems to be another tunnel going off a few yards up here.”
Ryan looked at J.B., seeing from his expression that he was thinking the same thing. “That mutie”
“Yeah, Ryan. Small bastard. Dirt on his clothes. Spear like that useful in a tunnel.”
“You reckon they’re up there?”
J.B. nodded. “Could be. Waiting for us.”
“One way to find out.”
The Armorer grinned, thin-lipped. “Fucking right, Ryan. Fucking right.”
IT WAS THE BEGINNING of one of the worst experiences in Ryan Cawdor’s entire life.
At their highest the tunnels didn’t reach five feet, and in places the group found it necessary to wriggle on their bellies. Mostly the tunnels were dry and dusty. But some of them were wet, with slimy mud that got all over everyone, making it hard to get any purchase on the rough floors with fingers and toes.
Most of the way, the tunnels were totally dark. But occasionally the black gave way to a dull gray light, which would fade away again as the tunnel dipped or straightened.
By mutual agreement, Jak went first, his lithe, skinny body folding easily around the sharp bends and inclines. Lori followed, with Finn struggling along third. Doc Tanner came fourth, his stovepipe hat cradled in his arms as he crouched and ducked like a rheumatic stork. J.B. was fifth, his Tekna knife in his right hand. Krysty was next, and Ryan brought up the rear. As the tallest of the party, he found the tunnels most difficult. He also got everyone else’s dirt and mud pushed back in his face.