It could have been that.
THEY TOOK a half-hour break.
Emma fell asleep almost immediately, though it wasn’t a quiet rest. Her body twitched and moved, and she kept up a constant whispering. Dean crawled close and lowered his head to try to catch what she was saying.
“Come away,” Krysty whispered. “Private.”
But Ryan overruled her, gesturing for Dean to stay where he was for a while longer. “Nothing’s private when you take a stranger along with you.”
“I suppose that Trader said that,” Krysty said with a sneer.
“No, lover. I said that.”
Dean moved away, his face puzzled. “Double odd, Dad.”
“You hear anything of what she was saying?”
“Not much. Too quiet and quick. And some of it was like nonsense.”
“You understand any of it?”
“About dying.”
“Her dying?”
“Not sure, Dad. Said that her body was collapsing inside, like crumpled paper. She could hear the noise it was making, coming out of her mouth every time she opened it. Nothing would stop it. Said it frightened her.”
“Not surprised,” Mildred said, joining them.
“Would’ve frightened me, too.”
“What kind of building you think this was, Dad?”
Ryan hadn’t given the question any thought. It was just a ruined building, like millions of others left abandoned and destroyed all over Deathlands. It was stripped as bare as charity, with not even a nail left in a wall. No doors, no glass, walls split either by the nuking or by the quakes. Part of the flat roof gone, exposing rotten beams and a few slates.
“Probably a store, or a garage,” Mildred suggested. “Reckon they’re old oil stains on the floor over there by the door. Entrance is wide enough for that.”
Ryan looked at the front wall, where they’d come in. But most of it had been reduced to rubble, making it impossible to speculate any further on what the place might’ve been.
“Been a lot of things,” Emma said very quietly. “It was a store for food at the end. Had been a garage.” She stared up at the exposed beams. “Man hanged himself from there. Little man. Family died in the first strike. He had rad cancer.”
“Jesus,” Mildred whispered. “That is one very scary talent, lady.”
“I BELIEVE that Jupiter Pluvius has finally relented on us poor mortals,” Doc said, peering out of the building into the early-evening gloom.
“You mean it’s stopped raining, then say that, Doc, instead of your damned archaic old quotes.”
He bowed to Mildred, unable to hide his pleasure at having got a reaction from her. “I had forgotten that most women have small Latin and less Greek, ma’am.”
Ryan broke up the pending argument, standing and putting the Steyr onto his shoulder. “Let’s move it, people. Be dark in a couple of hours.”
Everyone got to their feet, adjusting their baggage and their blasters. Krysty was first to the entrance when she suddenly stopped as though she’d been poleaxed. Emma was walking close at her heels, and she, too, stopped in her tracks, giving a small gasp of shock.
Krysty spun and the two women stared at each other, inches apart.
“Yes,” Emma said, though Krysty hadn’t said a word. “I feel them, too.”
“What?” said Ryan. “Danger?”
“Stickies, I think.” Krysty shook her head. “Very close. Coming this way.”
The doomie closed her eyes a moment. “They were hidden. Mebbe in a building, like us. There’s about a dozen of them, and they have three norms with them.”
“They prisoners?” Jak was immediately at Emma’s side.
“Mebbe.”
“You carry a blaster, Emma?” Ryan asked.
“No.”
“Best borrow one.”
J.B. unslung the Uzi, offering it to Dean, much to the boy’s delight. “You have this and give your Browning Hi-Power to Emma.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
“You have to carry a weapon in Deathlands.”
Emma shook her head, brushing her bangs back off her eyes. “I’ve never found it necessary.”
Ryan looked at her. “How long have you been out and about, Emma?”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t believe someone your age, looking as good as you do, can possibly have been walking loose in Deathlands for all that long. Not staying untouched. Tell me I’m wrong.”