“Not doing good,” he said in a distant voice as he took the tube from her.
“It’s all there is,” Mildred replied. She watched as he applied some of the cream to his raw skin. They had all used the block, but she had saved extra for Jak, only too aware of the problems he was left open to by his albino condition.
Ryan noted the concern in her voice. “How much of that do we have left?” he asked.
Mildred shrugged. “Not enough. Maybe two, three days’ worth. It’s like the water and the self-heats. This damn sun is making us use more than we could have estimated.”
Ryan nodded but said nothing. It was a cause for some concern that all their supplies, taken from a rich source, were being used far too fast. He squinted his good eye and took a long, hard look down the road in the direction in which they would travel. The horizon shimmered, but even in the haze there was little sign of even a hallucination that could be construed as shelter.
“Okay. Let’s just see…”
THEY SPENT the rest of the day making slow, agonizing progress along the old blacktop. The surface was too broken and scarred to use. The uneven tarmac could cause a sprained ankle or worse, and the sticky, almost melting surface would slow progress and take too much energy as it dragged and pulled at their aching leg muscles.
The sun, with an almost interminable slowness, gradually sank. Night fell, and the sudden drop in temperature caused them to shiver uncontrollably, making it hard when they stopped to light a fire from the sparse brush, using a flare to ignite the blaze and add a burst of heat. The self-heats were difficult to handle with their spasms, and precious water was spilled.
“We have to try to sleep,” Mildred said when they had finished eating. “Try to get as much rest as possible.”
“If I sleep, then I fear that I may never wake,” Doc said in a sudden burst of lucidity. “If this is life, and nothing more than a waking dream,” he added as an afterthought.
“Nightmare, more like,” Dean said, his voice betraying a slide into sleep.
“Have to get through this,” Ryan said as they huddled together to keep warm and preserve valuable body heat. “There could be a ville just over the horizon.”
“Or a wag stop,” J.B. added. “Anything…”
THE RISING SUN WOKE them next morning, the lack of atmospheric cover causing the ultraviolet rays to immediately scald them.
“Another day, another adventure,” Mildred muttered sarcastically as she stirred beneath her jacket. “I just hope that we find something today…” She let the sentence drift, not wanting to add that they didn’t have the water and salt—even as carefully rationed as they dared—to last much beyond.
They began the slow march to the west, trudging heavily along the side of the road. The sun beat down steadily and with an ever growing intensity, and after a few hours it was all any of them could do to keep their heads up. Ryan took the point, J.B. the rear, and they straggled out into a line with Dean propping up Doc in the middle, while Krysty and Jak followed close to the one-eyed warrior, with Mildred staying at the rear with the Armorer.
They couldn’t bear to look up in the glare of the sun, and their aching neck muscles couldn’t support them in their attempt to stare ahead, so it was the sound that came to them first, floating across the empty air and breaking the intense concentration that enabled them to keep one foot going in front of the other.
It was Jak, with his heightened senses that made him such a keen hunter, who heard it first. Despite his fatigue, he snapped his head upright, red eyes burning brighter than the bloated orb above them.
“People.”
Ryan stopped, the line closing behind him as they banded together, coming to a halt. Jak’s statement, and Ryan’s sudden halt, instantly broke them from their own personal reveries. They all listened intently, staring as they did so into the shimmering haze that became more indistinct as it approached the horizon.