It was true.
The hillside above the hidden fortress was covered with trees, most of them looking about fifty or sixty years old. There was also the evidence of an earlier fire that had obviously raged with catastrophic force through the region, leaving a number of blackened, brittle corpses of pines to stand among the fresh, greener conifers.
“The whole land’s changed a lot,” J.B. said, peering at his map. “I think this was once close to what was called the Land between the Lakes and it was real near to the Tennessee River. But it wasn’t like this then, with all these dozens of lakes and islands and stuff.”
“Quakes?” Krysty suggested. “Not much of Deathlands is still like it was before sky dark.”
“Possible.” Ryan felt an insect on his cheek and slapped at it before it could sting him. “Whatever it was changed the land. There’s not much sign of anyone living here. No smoke. No buildings. Just a lot of nothing.”
“Where do we go to get some food?” Mildred asked. “Don’t see much wildlife, either.”
“We’ll find something,” Ryan replied, sounding preoccupied. “Interesting that the redoubt hasn’t been broken into. Specially as the entrance has been damaged.”
“Still take a serious nuke to break it down.” The Armorer sniffed. “Like I said. Probably can’t see it unless you’re on top of it. The trail that used to run from it vanished under water just down yonder.”
They all looked to where he was pointing with the muzzle of the Uzi.
Ryan could follow the rough line of a two-lane blacktop road that sloped down from where they were standing, winding between a jagged bluff and a sheer drop, then disappearing under the limpid water of the nearest lake.
“Looks to me like this is an island.”
Doc clenched his fist and placed it over his heart, as he did when he was about to declaim.
“No man is an island, dear friends. For we are all a part of a world of promontories, buttes, mesas, islets, archipelagos and and other geographical features far too numerous to mention here. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, my tried and trusted companions.”
“Why not, Doc?”
“Why not what? What, what?”
Mildred tried again. “Why not ask you for whom the bell tolls? Doesn’t it toll for thee?”
“For me?” asked Doc, looking increasingly harassed and puzzled.
“For thee,” Mildred intoned solemnly.
Ryan kicked at some loose granite chippings, stained with yellow-green lichen. “When you two have finished your one-up brain games,” he said, showing his irritation, “then we can all get moving and try and find something to eat.”
THEY WALKED DOWN THE TRAIL in the dull midmorning light, winding between the trees. Ryan looked back once they’d gone a hundred paces and wasn’t surprised to find that all trace of the huge, hidden redoubt had gone.
He had quietly checked the small rad counter that he wore in his lapel, finding that it was barely shaded out of the green toward the yellow, meaning that they were about as safe as they could be anywhere in Deathlands.
The labor that had gone into building the redoubt, and many others like it, was staggering, and the cost incalculable. All of them had been constructed in a hurry at the very end of the twentieth century, when the new cold war was raging with a particular threatening bitterness.
This one, built in a back-country area of rural Tennessee, was almost invisible. Much of it was below the surface of the land and, Ryan guessed, also below the levels of the surrounding lake, now blending perfectly into the much-changed landscape so that nobody had entered it for close to a hundred years.
“If it’s an island, then how get off?” Jak asked, materializing at Ryan’s elbow like a silver-haired ghost.
The one-eyed man had been wondering the same thing himself. Now he patted the teenager on the shoulder. “Like Trader used to say. There’s always a way. Over, under, around or through. In this case it looks like it’ll have to be over. Plenty of wood to make some kind of raft.”
“You miss Trader?” the albino asked. “Lost track of how long since last saw him.”