Simple greed. Maybe that was it.
Kurt shrugged, his face still masklike.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah what?” rasped McCandless. “Yeah, ya listenin’ to me, or yeah, we’re all
gonna get lucky?”
The thought struck Kurt anew that there was no way McCandless was going to share
with him if they struck it lucky. Or with anyone. He had in fact been aware of
that all along, right from the start, right from the moment when McCandless had
grabbed him.
McCandless—sharing? Even an eighth? Fat chance.
He said, his voice lifeless, his mind filled with the sudden image of Denning
with just a bloody mush were the back of his head had once been, “Both.”
“Fine,” said McCandless, with a grin. “So let’s do it. Let’s move, huh? Let’s
get us some of that good fortune.”
They stumbled up the road, Reacher in front, McCandless next, then Rogan. Kurt
took up the tail.
He gripped his old Armalite auto-rifle with both gloved hands, left under the
stock, right around the trigger guard. Every so often he glanced back, but there
was no one there. They’d seen no one since they’d left Mocsin. No muties, no
mannies, no norms. Nor had they seen much fauna, come to that. The odd snake,
nothing much else, nothing that looked at all as if it could wipe out a party of
fifty men and all the men who had gone before.
Nor had they seen any sign of the steam trucks. No rusted hulks, no nothing. So
unless the area they still had to reach, the high side of the mountains, was
inhabited, it looked as if the only thing that could have dealt death to all
those pilgrims of the past was the fog.
The fog that Dolfo Kaler had babbled about.
Fog devils, he’d said. Tear you apart, he’d said.
A fog with claws.
The wind was getting wilder, a banshee wail that echoed and reechoed around
them. The four men had to fight to keep their balance, to stop from being
plucked into the air and hurled over the edge of the precipice. They hugged the
granite wall, stumbling and staggering onward, holding on to rocks with their
gloved hands.
Kurt had to sling his rifle, a thing he did not care to do in a situation in
which a second’s delay in pulling it off his shoulder might be all the
difference between life and death. But it was either that or be buffeted by the
howling gale across the road and over into the black abyss the other side.
Suddenly it was colder. Much colder. Kurt stared upward, saw snow sweeping in
from afar, a blizzard of ice and sleet hurled across the wilderness straight at
them.
Yet still the lightning flickered and flared, exploding the blackness every few
seconds with an unnatural radiance.
Head down, Kurt cursed through gritted teeth as the whirling maelstrom of ice
chips exploded over them, battered them like hammers. Blindly he groped in his
furs, tugged out heavy-duty Snospex, somehow managed to pull them over his head.
He pulled the hood of his furs down hard, then crouched, gripping chunks of rock
for dear life as another blast of wind hammered across the road with a demon’s
roar.
The wind died as suddenly as it had risen. It disappeared as though it had never
been. Fat snowflakes softly feathered down through the air.
Breathing hard, Kurt clambered to his feet and unslung his rifle. He stared
around, fearful that something might have snuck up on them while the gale had
kept them flattened to the rock wall.
Nothing. The lightning cast a cyanic glow over the mountainscape. McCandless
turned, stumbled back down toward him.
“Blasted nukeshit storm. Ain’t seen nothin’ like it. Ain’t natural.”
Kurt said, “Ain’t nothing natural in the whole nuke-shittin’ world, McCandless.
Not since the Nuke.”
“Shit,” spat the big man, “yer a philosopher, Kurt.” He turned back disgustedly.
“C’mon! Move it! Let’s go!”
They trudged onward, snow still drifting down from the lightning-slashed
blackness all around them. It was hot again, humid. Clammy. Kurt could almost
taste the electricity in the air, like a sharp razor flicking at his tongue. He
shrugged irritably.