“Chunk about arguments with his wife. What should they do? The drugs are working and he’s losing it. ‘Since Jim died two or three days ago, we knew the end was closest and closer to them.’ Not making proper sense. ‘Darlene took the sleepers and lay on H’s lap like a princess from a fairy tale. Slipped asleep and we kissed her and put her to bed. Stewart didn’t want and we had to’ Can’t read the next bit, either.”
J.B. shook his head. “Far as I’m concerned, you don’t need to read any more, Ryan.”
“Right at the end now. Looks like the poor bastard could hardly hold the pen.”
Trader stood. “Got to take a leak,” he said. “Back in a minute.”
” ‘Told her I loved her. Thanked her good days and days. Head feels like tumbling slurry of Lay together. I’m ahead. Behind. H is restless. Sick noises. Don’t think write more of any'” Ryan looked at the Armorer. “That’s it. Ends there.”
“Yeah.” J.B. sighed. “Yeah.”
Chapter Seven
They had all agreed there was no point in placing a guard on watch during the night.
The mere fact of the house standing empty and untouched for so many years was a clear enough sign of how deserted these outer suburbs were.
“Closer in we get, the more risk there’ll be,” Trader said. “Keep a good watch out for those night people the old slut said she saw.”
“What do you reckon?” J.B. asked, carefully checking the action on his scattergun.
“Ghouls. Some sort of ghouls. Kind used to feed on flesh. Muties. Something like that,” Trader said vaguely.
Ryan laughed. “Facts like those at your fingertips and you can’t lose.”
IT WAS A DULL, overcast day, with no sign of the sun lurking above the low clouds. The wind was westerly, bringing the bitter taste of salt. It was a little warmer than it had been, but the darker sky out over the ocean promised rain before the morning was done.
They had been walking for only a few minutes, still sticking to their skirmish line, when J.B., out at point, stopped and held up a hand.
“What?” Trader called, moving back into the shadows of a fallen wall.
“Check your rad counters.”
Ryan glanced down at the tiny button in his lapel, seeing that it had changed color, going from the safety of green, through yellow into deep orange, verging on crimson.
“Hot spot,” the Armorer called. “I can see some nuke damage ahead of us.”
Ryan moved up from the rear, looking in front of them, where the street went down a slope. The houses there showed increasing damage, roofs missing, all the windows stove in by the shock waves of the missiles. And the area was devoid of trees or shrubs.
“Crater?” Trader asked.
“Yeah. Filled with water.” J.B. wiped his glasses on his sleeve, cleaning off the fine drizzle that had just started to fall.
“Best cut around it. North or south?” Trader looked at the other two.
“North,” Ryan suggested.
“Why?”
“You can see where the main ruins are, jutting down there, where the land gets more narrow.”
Trader nodded. “Makes some sense. I’ll go out front now.”
THE DETOUR OF THE AREA of ancient but still lethal radiation took most of the morning. There was the familiar ripple effect on the streets, where solid stone had melted and turned to frozen, corrugated taffy.
Whole blocks of the pleasant frame houses had fallen away like paper, many of those nearer to the impact zone of ground zero completely vaporized.
“Not surprised to find nobody around,” Ryan said, checking his rad counter again. “It’s still up in the high yellow zone, and we’re a good mile past the crater.”
The rain had eased away again, and there was the hope of the clouds breaking during the afternoon.
Trader had stopped to relieve himself again, going along a narrow alley by the side of a ruined church.
“Never met a man piss so much as Trader does now,” J. B. commented. “Never used to. Did he?”
“Comes with age.” Ryan rubbed his hands together. “Come to all of us.”
“If we live long enough.”