“The druggies were on foot.”
“Damn.”
Stirring the small fire with a green stick, Dean glanced at his father, then tossed some more seasoned branches onto the flames. As a small child, he had been taught that only dry wood went into a campfire. Green wood was still alive and full of sap, which made it smoke and give away your position. That could get you chilled, or worse. Out in the Deathlands, there were a lot of things more horrible than merely dying.
“Too bad the destroyer we found didn’t have any working Hummers,” Dean commented, poking the hot embers. “Or even a motorcycle. Just planes.”
“If found working Hummer,” Jak said, “how get out sideways boat?”
Wiping his face with the cloth, J.B. barked a laugh. “I’m not going to catch a bastard jeep like I did Millie.”
Jak almost smiled at the Armorer’s rare wit.
“Odd, though, the way the base and each of the ships had been stripped so thoroughly,” Ryan muttered, flexing his fingers with greater ease. The chill was slowly leaving his bones, and circulation was getting back to normal. “You would think if the vessel was caught in a nuke tidal wave, the whole crew should have died when it hit the beach,” he finished aloud.
“Scavs,” Jak said, as if that ended the matter.
“I agree,” Krysty added. “A prize like those ships wasn’t going to be left alone for very long. Even if there were no blasters, the tools and such were worth a baron’s ransom.”
“Too bad that comp disk we found last month was encoded.” J.B. wrapped his handkerchief around the bare metal grip of a coffeepot and poured the contents into a battered tin cup. He took a sip and tried not to grimace. Springwater, tree bark and some river moss. Mildred said it was nourishing, chock-full of vitamins, but it definitely failed in the taste department. He supposed this was a case of whatever didn’t kill you made you stronger. “Sure would have been nice to jump to any redoubt we wanted.”
“The redoubt at Wizard Island at Washington Hole?” Dean asked, scratching his neck.
Tugging his fingerless gloves on tighter, Ryan accepted a cup of the steaming brew and drank it without expression. Food was fuel, and he would eat anything that didn’t kill him first. Even this medicinal dreck. “If we could have jumped there, it would have shaved weeks off our journey to Front Royal.”
“But first mayhap we would have visited the old Alaska redoubt first,” Doc Tanner rumbled in a deep bass. Tall and slim, the white-haired man wore a long frock coat and a frilly white shirt from another era when the style of a man’s clothing was a vitally important issue. An ebony walking stick lay across his lap, the silver lion’s head shining like a mirror in the reflected light of the campfire.
“Huge place, biggest redoubt we’ve ever found,” Ryan said, frowning. “Over a mile wide. Big as an underground shopping mall.”
“Like the Freedom Mall?” Dean asked. His face was red from the firelight, making the boy seem years older, almost an adult.
His father nodded. “Yeah, and just as bad.”
“Worse,” Krysty countered, her hair flexing and moving in dark remembrance. “Much worse. Thank goodness that hellhole got what it deserved.”
“Indeed, the Keeper of the Alaskan redoubt couldn’t have been more insane if he had been his own father,” Doc said grimly, his hands tightening their grip on his walking stick. There was a click and the handle came free, exposing over a foot of shining steel blade. “However, I fondly recall that is where we got most of our blasters from originally, and there was a lot more there to be taken. And of course there was dear, dear Lori.” Closing the swordstick and twisting the handle to lock it tight, his face softened. “Ah, poor Lori Quint, I do sorely miss her company sometimes.”
Nobody spoke for a few moments out of respect for a friend no longer among the living. It had been a terrible way for anybody to die.
“Travel right direction?” Jak asked, changing the subject The teenager didn’t care if there were a million blasters elsewhere. They were here, and what ammo they carried in their pockets was the reality of the day. Dreams were for the dying.