Strasser stood and stared down with a cold smile on his face.
“The maiden,” he said softly. “You always get it wrong, Doc. The maiden implores
the lone traveler—not to put his head on her breast, but his hand.”
The man called Doc blinked up at him, still clasping his knee with one hand, a
puzzled expression creasing his face.
“Are… are you sure, Mr. Strasser?”
“Positive! The maiden wants the lone traveler to squeeze her breast. Both
breasts, in fact. With both hands. She is yearning for this, you old fool. Her
entire body is quivering with lust for him. She tells him that she is wet for
him, that only his lips, his tongue, can assuage her desire.” He paused, pursed
his lips thoughtfully. He said quite pleasantly, “You do remember this, don’t
you, Doc?”
“Why, yes…yes.” The man on the floor swallowed a couple of times, licking his
thin lips again, his brow corrugating into a frown. “Yes, I…I do believe you’re
right, Mr. Strasser. Curious that I should forget Longfellow’s immortal lines.
So stupid of me…”
“Pathetic.”
“Indeed,” the man replied, gulping. “Pathetic. Indeed, sir.”
“We shall still have to put you in with the sows, Doc.”
The man on the floor began swallowing hard. It was clear he was on the verge of
tears.
“Please, not that again, don’t make me do that again, I implore…” The words came
out in a ghastly, whining torrent.
“We shall have to strip you, Doc, and throw you in with the sows. Only when
you’ve done your duty will you be allowed to leave.”
Suddenly tears were streaming down the man’s face, and his body shuddered
convulsively. He began to bang his head on the floor, great choking sobs racking
him. He had released his knee and now started beating his clenched fists against
the floor in time with his head. He began to howl.
Strasser turned from him, his gaunt face masklike. He snapped his fingers once
and two men emerged from the shadows. They bent over the man called Doc and
picked him up as though he were garbage.
Strasser said, “Take him to the pigpens. You know what to do.”
They dragged him, screaming and howling and kicking, into the darkness.
Strasser watched them go, watched them disappear from sight, heard a door open,
clang shut. He turned and stepped from the light into the gloom.
Chapter Seven
JUNKED CARS LINED THE ROUTE into town: rotting, rusting, gutted hulks stripped
of every mechanical and non-mechanical item that might be of the slightest use
to anyone, fit for nothing but the scrapyard. To Ryan, driving his buggy, his
one eye nervously scanning left to right as he lightly gripped the wheel with
black-gloved hands, the whole ville seemed like a scrapyard. A gigantic,
sprawling and malodorous scrapyard.
Piles of refuse edged into the road, narrowing the way. It would be difficult
for two buggies to pass each other without hitting old crates and boxes and
rotting garbage in and out of bags; it would be impossible for two land wags.
The buggy went slowly. It was necessary. They passed a narrow street that had
clearly been abandoned forever. Garbage filled it from side to side to maybe
second-story level and probably from end to end, as well. A street of garbage.
Hunaker, who was manning the forward M-60, muttered, “This is nukehell.” She
stared at the street as they cruised by.
She said to Ryan, “There was a rumor Mocsin was sliding, but it looks to me like
it’s running out of control.”
Ryan reached down with his left hand, felt the reassuring bullpup shape of the
LAPA 5.56 mm he’d picked out of the war wag’s armory before leaving the Trader
and the rest of the convoy on the edge of town. It was thirty inches of compact
firepower with a 55-capacity stick mag. They’d found four crates of these in a
Stockpile they’d discovered in the foothills of the Ozarks. That had been a very
hairy mission: the indigenous population had been distinctly unfriendly, kept to
themselves, seemed to be not at all interested in trading of any kind but only
in killing anyone who entered their enclave. They’d also found three more crates