There weren’t enough refugees after the first six weeks of ninety-eight percent rad sickness to be able to loot more than a fraction of the homes still standing across what was already Deathlands.
And this southeastern suburb of Seattle was no exception.
TRADER PUSHED OPEN a rusted gate, taking care to lift it in both hands when the fragile hinges gave way. He laid the gate in the coarse grass of what had been the front lawn. Only the posts remained of the original chain-link fence that would have demarked each neighbor’s neat territory.
He waited on the porch, eyes scanning the deserted street, covering Ryan and then J.B. as they came along to join him. Trader pointed to Ryan with the Armalite, gesturing for him to go around the back.
His combat boots grated in the volcanic grit, but he had that indefinable feeling of safety. No prickling at his nape, no dark shapes that skulked into the bushes ahead of him. But he still made sure and kept his index finger snugly on the trigger of his blaster.
The house that Trader had selected seemed to be totally untouched, either by man or nature. There was even a cord of firewood cut and stacked under the tattered remains of a canvas cover along the side passage. A dog kennel, with a pile of dark bones, was visible inside.
Ryan came to the back door and waited. The dark wall of clouds that had lowered earlier across the hills had been blown away by a fresh breeze from the deep bosom of the ocean, revealing a chunk of silver moon, bright enough to give a good light.
Enough light for him to read the painted iron sign Wipe Your Feet Or Mom Wipes You.
The breeze stirred the branches of a huge eucalyptus, making Ryan spin. The topped remnants of a pergola lay near the bay hedge to the right of the house. He stretched out his fingers and touched the damp handle of the inner door. The outer screen door had been gone for decades.
Ryan took a slow breath, held it and released, then did it again. He put his weight against the handle and felt it turn, slowly and reluctantly.
He tasted a smell that was as familiar to him as his own sweat, a smell that he’d encountered in every corner and crevice of Deathlands.
Ryan entered the kitchen and hesitated, getting his bearings, wondering just where in the abandoned house he was going to find the corpses.
He heard the thin sound of breaking glass, followed by the creak of the front door opening. “Ryan?”
“Nobody, Trader. Nobody living.”
A SUPPLY OF CANDLES filled one of the drawers in the kitchen. Most of them were plain household candles, with a scattering of scented ones, cherry, melon, blueberry and cinnamon. Ryan pressed them to his face, trying to catch the elusive flavor of predark days.
Most of the curtains had rotted, but J.B. went around and closed the shutters that overlooked the street, keeping them safe from chance passersby.
Candles were set up on shelves and tables, and they filled the first floor with their golden, flickering, shifting light. Their burning seemed to swallow up a part of the other smell that Ryan had noticed as soon as he’d entered the kitchen, the smell that both J.B. and Trader had also noticed as soon as they were in the front hall.
It was likely that nobody had entered the deserted house for nearly a hundred years. All of its doors and double-glazed windows remained closed tight.
The scent of decay had gradually infiltrated every inch of the old building, so that even the walls seemed to be contaminated by it.
“Not down here,” Ryan said, catching the unspoken question in Trader’s eyes.
There were five.
J.B. found the first of them, in a small room to the right at the top of the dusty stairs. It had obviously been the bedroom of a little child. The wallpaper portrayed a superhero that none of them recognized, the design echoed on the comforter that covered the bed.
“Little girl,” Trader observed.
That was about all they could guess, basing it on the long blond hair that was spread out like a tracery shell across the smudged pillow.