“No. With Henn gone we’re low on blaster power. You, me an’ Finn. Doesn’t mean Doc and the girls don’t pull their weight, but we’re the professionals. Best we stick close.”
The promise of a good day was vanishing fast. The sky was chameleonic, shifting from a pale blue streaked with pink to a deep purple with black clouds slashed across it.
Ryan, as usual, took the point position, keeping as far as he could to the side of the blacktop, in among the shadows, blaster at the ready, finger close on the trigger. Krysty came second, twenty paces back, on the opposite side of the road. Then Doc and Lori, who were becoming increasingly difficult to separate, with Finn a farther twenty yards behind them. J.B. brought up the rear, keeping a good hundred paces off, on the same side of the road as Ryan.
The temperature was already rising, humidity making the going tough. Ryan estimated that it was already close to the hundred mark. He was glad that he’d left his beloved fur-trimmed coat behind in the gateway.
A large mosquito, wings shimmeringly iridescent in the hazy light, settled on Ryan’s left wrist, readying itself to feed. “Bastard!” Slapping at it, he crushed it in a smear of blood’.
There weren’t many signs that the blacktop was actually used very much. Oases of vegetation sprouted from cracks in its surface. A sharp curve to the left was followed by one to the right. At each turning Ryan held up a hand, slowing the others until he checked out what was around the bend.
Moving back, he called the rest to him, using the prearranged signal of touching the top of his head with his left hand. One by one they came up, J.B. at the rear.
“Road goes straight, but we’re close to a ville of some kind. And there’s a guard box over on the left, near a side trail.”
As they neared it, moving closer together, Ryan was first to see that the small building wasn’t a guard box at all.
“It’s a phone booth,” said Doc wonderingly. “I vow that it has been” He seemed awestruck. “many a long year since I have seen such an artifact.”
The box, with some of its glass still intact, leaned to one side. The letters ‘ATamp;T’ were still visible on it. The group stopped to gawk at it.
Above them the sky had darkened as it had the previous afternoon, with a jagged spear of silver lightning occasionally crackling down. To one side there was a large pool, reflecting the sullen clouds. Beyond the water several buildings were silhouetted in the distance, seemingly fairly undamaged.
If a whole large city had really escaped the nuking of 2001, it would be an astounding thing to see. Certainly Ryan Cawdor had never seen anything like it before.
Finnegan stepped closer, stopping about a dozen paces from the booth.
“Some fucker’s in there. I can hear it moving.”
“Get back, Finn,” ordered Ryan. “Don’t take any chance with”
The words died in his throat when he saw, as they all did, the creature that Finnegan had disturbed.
“A fucking rat,” said Lori. It was the first time any of them had heard her swear.
In the Deathlands there were all kinds of mutie creatures. But none of them had ever seen a rat like this one. It was much larger than usual, hanging on the plastic receiver cord, gnawing at it, while its fiery red eyes stared at the invading humans. Its coat was white as driven snow.
“Albino,” said Krysty. “I had a pet mouse back home called Blanche. She was like that. Pink eyes and white coat. No pigment.”
Almost contemptuously the rat scurried down the cable, pausing in the open door to pick its way delicately over splinters of broken glass, then running across the road and stopping on the edge of the bushes. Finnegan drew his Beretta 9 mm pistol, steadying his right hand with his left.
“No,” snapped Ryan. “Don’t be a stupe, Finn.”
“Why not? We can waste any local double-poor swamp muties.”
“Just like Henn did? Come on, Finn.”
During the brief conversation the rat made a leisurely escape.