“Think bit drugged,” he said.
Doc patted the teenager on the shoulder. “I would not be a jot or tittle surprised, dear lad. I confess to feeling a little doped myself.” He caught Mildred’s glance. “Perhaps I should say that I felt a little more doped than is my usual condition. All part of the murderous plan of that red-eyed trollop.” He scratched his head and finally returned the slender, engraved steel blade to its ebony sheath. “But I must admit to bewilderment at what lay behind this scheme. Ryan? What was the ultimate aim of this wicked, wicked woman?”
“You three would have simply disappeared. No way of knowing how or why. Could be she aimed to blame the mutie rats. I chilled another of them out yonder.”
Krysty shook her head. “I’m puzzled as Doc, lover. What’s the point of chilling Dean, Doc and Jak? Just what would she have gained by it?”
“Meat.”
“How’s that?”
“Fresh meat.”
“What for?”
“For her famous jerky.”
The storm had moved right away, and the rain had stopped. The clearing was startlingly silent, the six companions staring at Ryan, understanding dawning slowly on each horrified face.
“I cannot…” Doc began, stopping and swallowing hard. He turned away and leaned one hand on the rain-damp wall of the cabin. In the moonlight his normally ruddy cheeks had assumed the hue of old parchment.
“Dad! I…I…” Dean bent double and puked violently.
Jak said nothing, simply going back inside the dark cabin. A few moments later they could all hear the noise of his being very sick.
Mildred reached out and grabbed J.B. by the hand. “Sweet Christ on the Cross, John,” she whispered. “How can anyone be so…so…wicked?”
The Armorer squeezed her fingers so hard his knuckles whitened, moving closer to hug her to him. Rain streaked his glasses, making it hard to see his eyes. “Least we leave things a bit cleaner,” he said.
Krysty had also gone pale, her cheeks like ivory. “The jerky was… Oh, Gaia!”
Ryan told them in a few quiet words about the slaughter dump of corpses that he’d discovered along the rear trail.
“So, I guess we won’t stay here too much longer. Woman might have friends. Someone supplied her with the…stuff for her jerky. Might even be a colleague of the Children of the Rock. Just don’t know.”
J.B. looked at him. “Still some time to first light. I reckon it might be a real good thing to go through the place. See if we can find any clean, uncontaminated food. Then, before we set out tomorrow, we drag that—” he pointed with the Uzi at the corpse of the woman “—drag her inside and torch the place. Cover our tracks. Fire purges.”
THE SMELL OF KEROSENE lingered in the dawn air like iron on the tongue.
Through the open door of Mom’s Place, Ryan could see the feet and ankles of the owner of the eatery, lying by the bar, where she’d been dumped.
Jak was holding a self-light, waiting for the word to set it off.
“Everyone clear and ready?” Ryan waited for the response from the others. They were all packed and eager to move away from the nightmare place.
The first bright light of morning was breaking away to the east, dappling the slopes of the Sierras with the pale golden sheen. Though none of them felt that hungry, Ryan had insisted that they should all try to force down a reasonable breakfast before hitting the road.
There’d been plenty of eggs in the kitchen of the restaurant, as well as a larder with shelves full of sausages and home-cured bacon.
None of them had opted for any of the meat products, limiting themselves to omelets and scrambled eggs. Krysty also whipped up a plateful of buttered biscuits that vanished quickly enough.
Ryan glanced around, taking a deep breath of the clean mountain air, trying to set aside the memory of what they’d all eaten the night before. “Right, Jak?”
“Sure.”
“Set the fire.”
The self-light spluttered, its flame tiny and feeble in the dawn sunlight. Jak cradled it in his hands against the fresh breeze, stooped just inside the door of the eatery and applied it to a mess of crumpled paper, which flared up, a cloud of dirty gray smoke curling out into the clearing. In moments the kerosene-soaked wood caught, and the smoke thickened and became black.