James Axler – Watersleep

“Might as well toss these in the ocean,” the Ar­morer said.

“Don’t believe in that around here, Dix,” Carter replied. “Guns don’t belong in the sea.”

“Anything else?” Mildred asked hopefully. “Some plastique? We’re going to need it to go through with the plan.”

“Doctor, I wouldn’t have brought you all the way out here if I didn’t have more,” the tattooed man said. He flipped up a blanket revealing a green crate he’d been sitting on.

“Besides the Calicos, my private stash has one other distinct advantage going for it,” Carter noted, pulling it out to the center of the cavern.

Hidden away inside the big rectangular metal stor­age container painted olive green was the “advan­tage.” Thick white letters and numerals were sten­ciled on the sides of the container, which was roughly the size of a traditional footlocker. On the top of the box were smaller letters and numbers, all in a coded jumble beneath a torn red, white and blue decal of the American flag.

“These boxes are never the same twice. What’s in it?” J.B. asked, recognizing the style of standard mili­tary-issue container from his many searches of re­doubt supply rooms. The boxes could be used for any­thing from drab camouflage clothing to the near inedible delight of rations of self-heat cuisine. However, more often than not, the boxes were also dumps for ammunition, grenades or guns.

“You’re so smart, you tell me,” Carter replied eas­ily as he lifted the box and placed it on a makeshift tabletop near the entrance of the cave.

“Could be nothing but an empty box, Carter. I’ve seen the package a thousand times before, but the present inside is usually long gone,” J.B. remarked.

“Not this time, Dix,” Carter said, working the combination of a moldy lock that kept the lid of the container shut down tight. “This time I’ve got party favors for everybody.”

Carter lifted the lid with a proud flourish.

J.B. and Mildred both leaned over and peered down inside.

“Good Lord!” Mildred gasped.

“Dark night!” J.B. said.

Carter reached inside and removed a silver-and-red concussion grenade. He tossed it lightly in the air over to J.B, who calmly reached down his right hand and caught the lethal egg before it could hit the ground. Mildred involuntarily flinched.

“No need for worry, Dr. Wyeth,” Carter said. “These things can’t hurt anyone until they’re armed.”

“Old as those grens are, they could blow right in our faces!” Mildred retorted angrily. “I don’t like taking chances!”

J.B. returned the explosive device to the metal and wire rack in the bottom of the steel container. “I count eight. Two burners, one concussion, one frag and four high-ex. Decent mix. Timers seem to be tight and clean. The outsides don’t look too badly cor­roded, either. Last batch of grens we found, they were leaking like hell.”

“I remember,” Mildred said with a grin. “Dean knocked the box over and the entire lot nearly went off in our faces. Did a ten-second run to safety in nine seconds flat to outrun the timers.”

“This time we’re keeping the kid out of the grens,” J.B. said.

Carter closed the container but left the lock unfas­tened. He then picked up both of the Calicos and slung them over his left shoulder. The extra magazine went into one of the numerous pockets of the blue jumpsuit he now wore.

“Grab one end of the box, Dix, and I’ll carry the other. We’ll divvy up the grens back at the commune. Shauna and Ryan will probably want to decide which ones we’re going to use.”

J.B. had already known that Ryan would say to take them all.

The rumble of the wag they had been warned about shook the Armorer from his memories. The hum of the internal eight-cylinder turbocharged engine was clean and uninterrupted, a muted throb that grew louder as the vehicle approached.

The wag was a familiar sight to both Ryan and J.B. From the flat-backed rear-access hatch to the bullet-shaped blunt nose and angled headlights, the vehicle was a near twin of the type they had recently liberated from a cache found inside an underground complex in Dulce, New Mexico. The primary difference was that the earlier wag had been factory new, with barely a hundred miles logged on the odometer. It had been fully loaded, too, with a barricade remover, a Watt-Olsen spotlight and a twin-speaker mounted public-address system.