“Start looking for a place to make a stand,” Ryan shouted to J.B.
The flat plain offered little in the way of defensive prospects. With the river gone underground, there were no trees or even bushes. They had to keep going. Soon the lead wag was close enough to try to shoot at them. Dean could hear muffled blasterfire, but the bullets weren’t making contact.
Yet.
“We got trouble ahead, Ryan!” J.B. cried.
Dean could see it. A pile of big chunks of concrete rubble stretched completely across the four-lane road. And was coming up fast.
Too fast.
His father cursed and slammed on the brakes. The Winnebago skidded on the rotted tarmac, its rear end fishtailing to the left.
Dean held on to the seatback with both hands as the world slewed sickeningly and clouds of dust boiled through the holed-out walls.
The RV hit the rubble barrier sideways, and in what seemed like slow motion, bounced off and came down with a jarring crash beside the crude arrow sign. Ryan punched the gas pedal, and the wag roared off the roadway. He had no choice.
“Dark night!” J.B. exclaimed when he saw the narrow track before them.
Which matched Dean’s thoughts exactly.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The rutted lane was just wide enough for the RV. It ran flat and perpendicular to the interstate for thirty yards or so, then it started to climb up the steep slope. The series of switchbacks had been hacked out of beige sandstone bedrock.
“Got to be what’s left of a predark road,” J.B. said.
Ryan grunted in agreement. There was no road grading machinery in operation post skydark. Highway departments worldwide had gone spinning down the toilet along with everything else. And as far as Ryan knew, in Deathlands there was no army of slave laborers large enough to carve even this crude one-lane track.
“Could have been some kind of service road,” Mildred suggested. “For firefighters. Or power line crews.” She pointed at the blue dark forest and mountains towering above them. “Had to have been National Forest up there. Could have been part of that.”
Whatever its original purpose, the detour was an endurance course for the aged and now shot-up Winnebago. The hairpins were tight and the grade in some places was forty-five degrees, which forced the companions to brace themselves against floor and walls, or end up in a pile of tangled arms and legs in front of the rear door.
Negotiating the zigzags took some very careful driving on Ryan’s part. Keeping the wag’s momentum going with an automatic tranny was tough, and if he gained too much speed and lost control, there was no margin for error—he’d drop a wheel off the edge of the road. The unpaved track was badly rilled out in spots. The weight of the RV caused these parts to crumble, and the spinning rear tires cut deeper potholes and ruts. The lion sitting over the back wheels helped big time as far as traction was concerned.
As the Winnebago climbed, Ryan and the others could hear a chorus of engines below, roaring ominously as they lumbered up the track after them. They couldn’t see the wags, though. They were about a quarter mile behind. Any hope of the pursuit giving up once they saw the grade and the narrow road had long since evaporated.
“Whoever they are,” Krysty said, “they sure got a giant bug in their butts over us.”
“If they were ville folk,” Mildred said, “you’d think they would have turned back long before this. After all, they won the fight, even though a few of them got chilled in the process. Seemed like they would write it off as part of the cost of doing business… and building their reputation as a big-time, take-no-shit ville.”
“Makes me think it’s got to be the Magus who’s after us,” Ryan said. “We caused him a good bit more trouble than we did the farmers. We didn’t just upset his plans for Bullard ville—we put an end to his carny operation. Mebbe forever.”
“And Magus doesn’t give up until he’s dead square even,” J.B. added. “That’s a proven fact.”
As the grade continued to steepen, the RV lost so much speed that they probably could have outpaced it on foot, but abandoning their wheels at this point was out of the question. If they did that, once the ground flattened out, or turned downhill, the pursuers in wags could run them down. Nor was there any discussion of some of the companions getting out and trying to slow down or stop the miniconvoy with small arms or hastily rigged deadfalls. They were already outnumbered and outgunned. To have split up their force would have been suicidal.