James Axler – Road Wars

“Gas is double low, Ryan.”

“How about the steering?”

“Why?”

“Seemed to me that the buffalo might’ve affected the tracking of one of the pairs of wheels. Steering didn’t seem quite on the line.”

“Trail’s rough.”

Ryan looked ahead of them. Decades of rain had gouged great furrows from the packed dirt, and the wag was shuddering from side to side.

“True.”

“Wait until we get it on the flat.”

“Reckon there’s probably a small ville up there. Or the remains of one.”

“Could be. Got to go someplace. Loads of old mining camps around here.”

The dirt track wound back and forth, sometimes with trees pressing in on both sides. Muddy water streamed down and, in places, there was barely enough room for the seven-foot width of the wag.

J.B. had dropped down to one of the lowest gears, the engine laboring, struggling for adhesion on the sharp bends. The smoke from the exhaust seemed to be thicker, leaving gray coils behind them. Ryan was beginning to worry about the noise, audible to anyone within a dozen miles.

They’d managed to make good time so far, but at least three-quarters of the trip remained. With reliable transport it would be a matter of less than a week. On foot they’d not even be close to the rendezvous within their five-week schedule.

They drove past the remains of a sign, leaning at a drunken angle over the edge of the drop. With the storm’s passing, the sun had peeked through the skein of high, thin clouds, illuminating the faded letters. Ryan heard J.B.’s laughter as he read the sign through the driver’s ob slit”Steep GradeTake Extra Care.”

After one more rough section, the beat-up track began to level out, the bends becoming much less sharp, the trees starting to thin to scrubby brush.

A shack, the walls weathered and split, appeared on the right. Ryan had eased himself a little lower in the turret, leaving just his head and shoulders protruding. The Steyr was in the cabin, and he held the SIG-Sauer cocked and ready.

Now the engine of the wag sounded better and the exhaust fumes were markedly less. But J.B. had called back that the gas was almost gone.

“Looks like a ghost town,” Ryan shouted. “No sign of any life.”

It was difficult trying to get hold of quality gasoline in Deathlands. Generally it was only the barons of powerful villes that had their hands on reasonable quantities, and they weren’t going to part with it that easily or cheaply. They always had sec men guarding their fuel dumps, so stealing was also a high-risk option.

But the smaller villes and frontier pestholes rarely had more than minimal supplies of anything.

The ghost town that they were entering looked like it was high on rotting, worm-eaten wood and tumble-weed, and very low on anything else.

“Reckon we should stop now,” J.B. said, braking to a halt, allowing the engine to idle. “Looks like it might be a dead end farther up. Get ourselves stuck there and we might never move out of the place.”

“Yeah.” Ryan climbed down onto the damp earth, scanning the line of abandoned houses.

The Armorer switched off the LAV, the silence surging in around them.

He joined Ryan, wiping oil sweat from his forehead, replacing his time-worn fedora. “Reckon we have enough gas now to turn around and run for a quarter mile.”

“I don’t see a Mobilgas station,” Ryan commented.

“A what?”

“Krysty showed me a picture in an old magazine. From the second of the world wars. Painting by a man called Hopper. I remember that it was a gas station. A Mobilgas station. Lovely feel to it. Sort of amazing atmosphere.”

“I don’t see any sort of store. Or any sort of school or church. Or eatery or gaudy. Dark night, Ryan! There’s nothing here at all.”

THE FIRST FEW BUILDINGS that they entered had obviously been deserted from well before skydark. What glass remained was crazed by the sun and covered in a patina of spiderwebs. Doors hung crookedly from their hinges, and not a single roof was in place.

Nor was there much evidence of anyone living there after the long winters.