“There was an extinguisher near the workbench,” Doc told him, heading that way through the maze of twisted military vehicles.
“No time! Quick, give me a hand,” Krysty said, climbing onto the side of the APC. Standing on tiptoes, the woman lit a butane lighter and thrust it at the thick smoke, but was still too far away. Joining her on top of the transport, Ryan grabbed the woman around the waist and lifted her as high as he could until she was lost inside the layer of smoke, able to play the tiny flame against a sprinkler set into the ceiling. At first nothing happened, and Krysty started to cough from breathing the oily fumes, but refused to quit. But then after a few moments, every sprinkler in the garage released, gushing out volumes of an orange fluid that soon doused the fire and washed the floor clear of the potentially deadly fuel spill.
“That’s not water,” Mildred said, tasting a drop by licking it off her palm: She made a face and quickly spit it back out. “Some sort of chemical composition. Must be designed for oil fire, since this is the garage.”
“Makes sense,” Ryan stated, watching the excess flowing into hidden drains set along the walls.
The stink was soon cut from the atmosphere, and the companions went back inside the APC to get out of the downpour. But after only a few more minutes, the sprinklers began to sputter, the rain of fire retardant chem foam slowing to a mere dribble, and then stopping completely.
“No electricity means no pumps to maintain pressure,” J.B. said, wiping his glasses clean. “Good thing this wasn’t a major blaze.”
Just then, a millipede crawled into view from the cracked ventilation shaft in the closet, snapping its pinchers at the orange residue of the retardant covering the fuel containers. Pulling a knife with his right hand, Jak passed it to his left and threw. The blade hit the mutie in the mouth and it recoiled, snapping as blood gushed from the wound.
“The blast didn’t get all of them,” Krysty said grimly, lowering her own knife and tucking it away. “Stay sharp. There may be others.”
“However, the bugs really don’t like this stuff,” Ryan said, brushing back his hair to tie a handkerchief around his forehead. “And that gives us an edge again.” The chems were making the cut on his forehead throb with pain. Hopefully, the cloth would help. He knew that Mildred could stitch the gash shut, but there was no time right now. They had only a few candles and lots to do.
“Okay, there’s lot of wreckage now to block both of those cracks, so let’s get moving,” Ryan ordered, kicking a foam drenched mutie carcass out of his way. “We’ll start with the big crack, then do the closet.”
“Haul out fuel cans, then push busted car against door,” Jak suggested, massaging his shoulder. “Not get past.”
“And in case they do, we can use the flame retardant as bug repellent,” Mildred said, scooping a handful off the dented hood of a luxury car and smearing it over the legs of her Army fatigue pants. “That should keep them off us, for a while anyway.”
“Going to need more light than these damn candles,” J.B. added, scrunching his face in thought. “Mebbe I can rig a nuke battery to some headlights. Worth a try.”
“Some of these trucks don’t appear in too bad a shape,” Krysty commented. “With some luck we might get something running and drive out here, before another swarm of those damn things arrive.”
“What if they’re outside, too?” Dean asked, sounding worried.
Ryan glanced around the wreckage filling the level. “No sweat, son. Anything we get moving should easily outrun the bugs.”
That was, Ryan added privately, as long as there was open ground outside. If they were on the side of a mountain or buried under the debris of a collapsed predark city, it was going to be the last train west for all of them.
“Besides,” Doc said, nicking a dead millipede head out of the way with the pointed tip of his sword, “there is no place else for us to go but out.”