in the war wag became quieter and the oppression became a tangible thing,
sitting on everyone’s spirits.
Now, with a man dying, hardly anyone was talking. Those on duty were busy
enough, but the rest either dozed or listened to tapes through the cans. Ryan
eased his way along to the tiny sick bay. Generally it was not much used. In a
firefight there were rarely any wounded.
Krysty was sitting on the edge of the bunk, wiping Kurt’s forehead. Even in the
past few hours the man had sunk. The mouth was relaxed, the eyes open. Even the
babbling had finally stopped. The eyes followed Ryan as he moved into the room.
“How is he?” asked Ryan.
It was Kurt himself who answered. “He’s near finally fucked, Ryan.”
“Looks that way.”
He was conscious that someone had come in behind them. Out of the corner of his
eye Ryan recognized the shambling figure of Doc.
“Better here than back in hellsuckin’ Mocsin, Ryan,” said Kurt.
“Yeah.”
“Man could choose worse company than this to die in.”
“Guess so. Anythin’ you want?”
“Mebbe a long drink and a tall blonde. No, make that…make that two of each.”
There was a dreadful spasm of strained breathing and the man’s whole body racked
upward, mouth gaping, the air hissing in his chest. Then Kurt lay still a
moment, eyes fixed to Ryan’s face. Finally his eyes closed and the flurried
movement of his chest ceased. Ryan glanced across at Krysty, who shook her head
and reached down to pull the gray blanket up over the blackened features.
“Gone beyond the river from which no man returns,” said Doc quietly.
“He’s chilled, Doc. The rest is crap. Life’s just somethin’ you lose.”
“Ah, I was meaning to ask you, Mr. Cawdor, if by any chance any of your people
had come across a possession of mine.”
“What possession, Doc?”
“Plural, I think. There are two of them. Past tense. Were two of them. Small,
gray spheroids, about… about so big.” He held his fingers apart to indicate
something roughly the size of an implode-stun grenade.
“Haven’t seen them. What were they?”
Just for a moment a look of foxy cunning faded across the old man’s wrinkled
face. And went just as quickly. “Nothing of importance, my dear sir. Nothing at
all.”
The war wag bumped over a particularly deep rut, making the scalpels rattle in
their shallow dishes. Doc adjusted his ancient hat, which he insisted on wearing
despite being inside the war wag.
“Upon my soul, but these roads are not what they once were.”
Ryan’s eye opened wider. “How in the big fire d’you know what they were like
before the nuke-outs?”
“Slip of the tongue,” said Doc hastily. “I have read of these great roads, that
is all.” He rubbed his eyes with the stained cuff of his frock coat. “In the
Darks, there was a dreadful fog!” His voice rose to an eldritch shriek that made
Krysty jump, looking around her in concern.
“Mistake,” he rambled on. “Escaped. Heads rolled. Fog like… like Cerberus.”
“What the fuck’s that?”
“A frightful hound of many ravening heads that guards the very mouth of Hades.
Oh, yes, Cerberus. That was the name of the project. Once. Then it changed.
Changed. A fog, Mr. Cawdor.”
“A fog, in the Darks?”
“A fog. With claws and teeth. Such claws and teeth.”
EVEN IN THAT PEACEFUL, desolate land, with not a single human being seen in
three whole days, there was still the presence of death.
They had been forced into a swinging detour about one of the few hot spots in
the region, around what had allegedly once been a town of seventy thousand souls
called Grand Falls. It had been hit by Soviet missiles for its special
industrial importance and power plants, and it was still a place to avoid, its
ruins toxic.
Toward evening of the following day, Ryan received the message that the Trader
wanted to speak to him. It was Krysty who conveyed it to him. With every day
that passed the girl looked in better and better shape, all the horrors now
behind her. She was wearing pale green overalls, with a bandolier of ammunition