The recent heavy rain had destroyed any tracks that the main street might have held, though Ryan sported what looked like muddy boot marks on the splintered boardwalk.
“Sheltered like that, they could have been made anytime in the last hundred years or so,” J.B. said. “Still, there were the tire treads coming up the trail.”
Caution was second nature to the two old friends.
Having decided to explore a little farther, they made sure that the wag was safely locked and all of the ob slits secure. Despite its power and armasteel, a quart of gas poured through an ob slit and ignited would quickly reduce the LAV to a glowing heap of twisted metal.
Ryan slung the Steyr across his shoulder, keeping the automatic in his hand. J.B. had the scattergun at his hip, the Uzi strapped over his back.
“Sure you want to do this, Ryan?”
“What?” The one-eyed man was genuinely surprised at the question.
“Something I don’t like here.”
Ryan looked at his companion, knowing better than to mock him. “We haven’t seen anything dangerous.”
“I know that.”
Ryan nodded. “Look, J.B., if you want to get back in the wag and see how far it’ll take us, then I’ll go along with you. You know that.”
“If Krysty was here she could ‘feel’ if there was anyone living around here.”
The main street bent around to the right, continuing toward the top of the hill, where it looked like it probably dead-ended.
“Been empty so long there’s no signs on the stores or anything.” It was as dead a small ville as it was possible to imagine. But after the Armorer’s concern, Ryan found himself starting to feel the familiar prickling at his nape. He glanced behind him, making sure that the wag was still safe where they’d left it.
They turned the corner, so that the rest of the settlement opened before them.
“Fireblast!” Ryan whistled softly between his teeth. “You were right,” he said. “Something triple strange going down here.”
It was as if there were two separate villes, one behind the other. The desiccated timbers of the old town, whitened by age, were replaced by a row of fresh-painted houses, about six of them, with a saloon, a couple of stores, a barbershop and a law office. There was even a small school, with its bell swinging in the wind, its clapper barely making contact with the faintest whisper of sound.
But still no sign of life.
The two men spread out automatically, without a word being said by either of them. The Armorer took the left side, keeping close to the shadows of the buildings.
Ryan came first to the barber’s store, a bright red-and-white-striped pole mounted outside the door. The paint was sparkling new, and the windows shone as if they’d just been polished.
Ryan paused, his finger on the trigger of the blaster. The doubts that J.B. had mentioned earlier were now firmly in the center of his mind. He glanced across, above the Armorer, checking that there was no movement at any of the curtains at the second-story windows.
J.B. was doing the same for him, the barrel of the M-4000 Smith amp; Wesson raking along the row of buildings.
“Nothing, Ryan,” he said. “Not a breath of life.”
“Got to be somewhere. Can’t just’ve upped and walked away leaving this place. I swear the boardwalk along here was swept this morning.”
“Same this side. You going in?”
“Can’t hear anything.”
The Armorer darted across the rain-smeared mud of the street, flattening himself against the wall of the barber’s. “I’ll cover you,” he whispered.
A large crow, yellow-beaked, flapped down the street and perched on the roof of the school, head on one side, watching the pair of intruders.
Ryan eased himself toward the half-open door, wincing as the boards creaked beneath his boots. There was still no sign of any danger, from norms or muties.
He pushed at the door with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer, so that it swung silently back, revealing the shadowy interior of the building.
“Going in,” he said.
J.B. waited, his eyes scanning the rest of the deserted township, all of his combat-sharp senses ready for trouble. He started, the muzzle of the shotgun jerking upward, reacting to the sudden movement of the carrion crow, flying heavily away. There had been no sound from inside the hairdresser’s.