A century ago, the whole town had been blasted away from above. Its streets and houses had been scoured clean of inhabitants. Families had been destroyed with the demonic breath of the neutron bombs. Russian submarines off the coast had lain still and patient and received the signal that told them this was no drill. No false alarm. No testing situation.
And the people had died and the houses remained. It was a cemetery, fifty miles wide and forty deep. Only in the swamps had people survived; many of their descendants were now muties. They avoided the ruins of the old villes, fearing the contamination they once harbored. The whole of West Lowellton was like some giant time cap sule, frozen since that dread January day a hundred years ago.
Ryan was fascinated and wanted to investigate each home and shop they passed. But J.B. warned him of the need for food and shelter.
“That Baron Tourment’s going to have patrols of sec men after us, Ryan.”
“Sure.”
“Look at ’em later.”
“Yeah. Guess so.”
THERE WERE surprisingly few buggies or wags of any kind. Ryan’s guess was that when the alarms started to shrill, lots of folks would have headed out of town, away from the missiles they knew would wipe away their homes. But nothing had prepared them for the reality of Armageddon. All the flix that Ryan had seen in old redoubts had warned about painting windows white to cut down the, flash-blast. Blankets soaked in water over doors. Sandbags. Refuge under stairs and in storm cellars. Brown paper bags over your head.
It hadn’t been like that. Best way of saving your kin from the long agony of rad-poisoning was to take out the pump-action scattergun and blow everyone’s head off, and finally kiss the warm barrel yourself.
Some had done that. Ryan had seen the corpses, half the bone of the head missing, the corroded ten-gauges still between the clenched jaws.
There was one saloon wagon in a side street, its tires long rotted, stripped down to metal by years of high winds, blasted by sand. The glass remained, though its surface had been hazed until it was opaque. A branch off a nearby lime tree had fallen over the hood. Krysty moved it, revealing two stickers, peeling off the chrome fenders.
One said, “I brake for children and animals and patriotic Americans.” The second one said simply “Happiness is the biggest L.R. Missile.”
Doc shook his head, saying nothing.
AROUND NOON they found a street showing a full row of shops. Ryan couldn’t get over the amazing sight. He’d seen old vids, flix and pix in mags. This was small-town U.S.A., standing there in front of his eyes. All that was missing was folks.
Some of the windows were broken, and there was clear evidence of looting. Also, the streets here were free of bones. As they stepped along, keeping to one side, Ryan glanced in at the storefronts.
Names clicked by, some registering, some not. Some of them had sold products he’d heard of. Some of them were obscure and incomprehensible.
What was Alice’s Tofu Joint? What was tofu? Some kind of food, he guessed, from a placard as faded as a Brady daguerreotype.
Pick’n Mix. Garry’s Auto-Tuner best muffler service in West Lowellton. Ynez Lobos, Realtor . Ryan didn’t know what a realtor was, but he figured it was someone who looked after other people’s houses for a fee.
“This is fucking way-weird,” said Finnegan, spitting at a red hydrant in the street,
Tien amp; Quarter. Circuit City, West Lowellton Estate Protection. German shepherds, man-killers. Armed patrols around the clock and back again. Save your loved ones and your possessions. Let us do the killing for you.
“Sounds like the Deathlaads now,” said J.B.
Guns. Guns. Guns. Guns . The storefront shouted the word again and again. The Armorer paused, wiping at the glass. In sticky gold letters, some of which were missing, the name of the ex-owner from the year 2001 declaimed itself.
Angus R. Wells. A native of Louisiana from birth. Carry arms it’s your right .
“Empty,” said J.B. disappointedly. “Not a blaster left in the place.”
“Guess the Cajuns must have taken ’em,” Ryan said, stepping around a dead snake that must have been close to fifty feet in length when alive.