Dark Reckoning by James Axler

“Fools,” Jak said, chewing on a leg bone.

Ryan added, “Dead fools.”

“Millie, what did you do with the boot soup?” J.B. asked, ripping open a plastic pack and taking a bite of the cherry-nut cake inside. A hundred years old and it was still moist. Predark whitecoats probably thought the mat-trans was their greatest invention. His vote went for vacuum-sealed food packs.

“I sealed the rest in a couple of pots and put them the main refrigerator,” Mildred said, pouring hot water from a tea kettle into a cracked mug. It had some sort of an anchor logo with a Latin phrase that was too faded to read. “We have fresh meat now, and the MRE packs for later, but it never hurts to have spare rations tucked away. When we needed it, the soup kept us alive.”

“Barely,” Jak said in earnest honesty. He added a sprinkle of powdered milk into his coffee, then some sugar. The teenager took a sip and felt the soothing warmth spread through him like a healing potion.

“Damn,” he exhaled in satisfaction.

Going to a sink in the kitchen, Ryan washed and went to the weapons table. They had food now, and a way into the home base of the blues. Blasters were now their top priority.

Before they left the tunnel, J.B. had drained the oil from the wag, and once they were back in the redoubt, he filtered it carefully through some washed sheets until satisfied it was pure enough to lubricate the weapons.

“Two crossbows,” he said aloud, taking inventory. “Eight arrows with no heads. Twelve AP grenades, two pounds of plas-ex with no detonators. Two gallons of fuel, but no bottles to make Molotovs, a roll of fuse we can’t get clean enough to work, a Colt .45 with ten rounds and two Kalashnikovs, each with two 30-round clips, and six loose rounds.”

“Better than before,” Doc commented, picking his teeth with a sharp bone. “But hardly a cornucopia of ironmongery.”

Rising from the dining table, J.B. carried a coffee cup to the weapons on display. “About twenty rounds were damaged and not salvageable,” he said, taking a sip. “But I saved the powder, mixed it with some ash from the garage and got three loads for Doc’s LeMat. The rest I keep.”

“Where did you get the lead?” Dean asked, mopping his plate with a piece of canned bread.

“I had spare lead and wadding,” Doc rumbled in reply, patting the handcannon at his belt. “Just no powder or primers. John Barrymore, you are a wonder.”

“Do what I can,” the Armorer said, finishing his cup of coffee. “Just don’t fire that monster too close to me in case I made the mixture too strong.”

Slung over his shoulder was the canvas bag that had held the grens they had found. It now served the Armorer as his replacement munition bag. Mildred had appropriated the other bag found in the wag. It was lighter, some sort of polyester mix that was waterproof. She had washed it a dozen times to get the bloodstains out, but some still remained as faint impressions of the original owners. Mildred was already busy rebuilding her stash of med supplies boiled cloth on sandwich bags for large wounds, some tampons found in a footlocker for small-caliber bullet wounds, a couple of kitchen knives she had ground to razor sharpness on a grinding wheel in the garage, a plastic bottle of boiled water. The physician even used a hacksaw to cut some copper pipe from under a sink to make trach tubes and to drain pus from infected wounds. A pair of pliers and a small set of tweezers completed the kit. It was a start. No matter how well trained any doctor or surgeon was, he or she couldn’t do much without the tools of the trade. Bare hands could kill a lot faster than hers could cure. Sad, but true.

“Rats are done cooking,” Krysty announced, coming out from behind the counter. “Just have to let them cool for a while, then we can stuff them in the fridge.”

“We have enough food for a week,” Mildred said, topping off her mug. “Which leaves us with the problem of blasters.”