For the next ten blocks, they proceeded quickly, following a set of disappearing tire tracks to a scraped wall, and through the center of a department store, the huge glass window on one side stoved in, and the other side busted out.
“Driving like a lunatic,” Ryan observed, treading carefully over the glass shards. “Must have known he was safe by now. We only had the one wag.”
“Afraid somebody else might see him?” Krysty suggested. “Mebbe he’s a solo who just wandered by, or a rogue living in the ruins, avoiding the sec men of the ville.”
“Excited. First time stealing,” Jak said, brushing off his knees. “Kid, mebbe.”
“Who got past a trap from J.B.?”
The Cajun shrugged in reply.
Too many questions, not enough info. Ryan hated mysteries. Give him a good standup fight any day. Checking a side street, the Deathlands warrior saw that the soft surface was smooth and untouched. “Nothing,” he reported to the others.
“Over here,” Krysty said, stepping through the ruins of a wooden fence. “Our thief was driving like he was being chased.”
“Muties?” Jak suggested, staying close to the woman.
“Or the wolves. Mebbe he was driving like this so the wolves could follow him to the muties,” Ryan said slowly, keeping a watch on a dark hole in a broken wall. “Give them something to feed on and leave him alone.”
“Like pets?” Jak looked disgusted.
“Not all muties are bad,” Krysty said sharply, her animated hair moving about her shoulders and face.
Following the tire tracks through the sand, Ryan took point, and, rounding a corner found himself before a block-long three-story building. It was a school of some kind with a tilted flag pole standing in the front, and an empty parking lot to the east side. The front and side of the structure was marked with bullet holes, the ground churned from explosives, but smoothed again by the wind. The windows were gone, blackened holes with the sky visible where a roof should have been.
Taking refuge around the corner, they used the mirror in turns to study the building. The tire tracks of the Hummer led straight to the side of the building where a gaping doorway stood more than large enough to drive the military wag through.
“Garage?” Jak asked.
Ryan nodded. “Looks like.”
“I think we found them,” Krysty said confidently. “Looks like a public school. Definitely not private. Those are always surrounded by high walls to keep out the riffraff.”
“Must have been a hell of a fight,” Ryan added, imagining the battle in his mind. “Blasters, Molotov cocktails and some C-4 bombs. Went hand to hand over there.”
“Are those arrows in that fence?”
“Check. Somebody ran out of ammo.”
“Five, six months ago,” Jak mused. “Depending on rain.”
“Think the defenders were fighting the muties?”
Baring his teeth, Ryan exhaled and tried not to think of the passing of time. “Muties? Well, I sure as hell hope there’s nothing else in this hellhole that can attack a third-story window.”
“Don’t seem to be any sec men on patrol,” Krysty commented, angling the mirror. “Area looks empty.”
“No snipers or lookouts,” Jak agreed, studying the rooftops while unfolding the foil on one of his precious last sticks of Army chewing gum. He folded it in two and started to chew with his mouth closed. Breakfast had been cold wolf, and his tongue tasted as if something had died there.
“Let’s take no chances,” Ryan told them, the hairs on the back of his neck stirring. He slicked them down with a palm. Something was wrong here; he could feel it. He just didn’t know what exactly. “Tracks leading to a burned-out school with nobody around. Smells bad to me. Could be a trap, and we know these folks are tricky. We’ll do a tight perimeter sweep, single file, two-yard spread. If there’s no activity, we go inside.”
“If this is a trap,” Krysty stated, taking her weapon in a double hand grip, “then they’ll want us alive, which gives us a tremendous edge in chilling them. Because we’re only interested in the kit. Don’t give a rat’s ass about them.”
Jak held up a restraining hand. “Wait for wind,” he said slowly. “Cover sound of boots. Wait…now.”