“Dark night,” J.B. cursed. “What the hell did you think you were doing?” he yelled at Mikey and Malloy as they stood on the lip of the roof, looking down. But even as he uttered the words, he knew they were rhetorical and pointless.
“That’s careless,” Mikey said to Molloy in bland tones. “They’ll have to carry that up again.”
INSIDE THE BUILDING, where Emerson and Rysh were still working alongside Doc, Dean and Jak, there were other accidents waiting to happen.
The walls were now in place, and, wearing improvised masks against the dust, Emerson and Dean were insulating the fuel store while the others were fitting shelves and doors.
The rolls of insulation were tied together by nylon cords that were knotted in several places, showing how many times the pieces of old rope had been used and recycled. Emerson had a bowie knife, which he had honed on both edges in order to speed his rate of work, and with it he was slicing through the cords at a rapid rate as they unrolled the insulation rolls. They were old asbestos and fiberglass insulation taken from predark factories, and spilled poisonous dust into the enclosed space.
Dean watched Emerson, distrusting the man with the knife when he was unarmed. Some of the knots on the rope were doubled over, and even with such a finely honed blade the workman was having trouble cutting through the ropes. Dean wondered why Emerson didn’t just cut the rope in areas where there were no knots.
It never occurred to him that it was a piece of low cunning.
“Check that roll,” Emerson barked, his voice muffled by the mask. Dean started, as it was the first time the workman had spoken to him that day. Emerson glared at Dean and repeated, “Check it—asbestos or fiber?” he yelled.
Dean turned to the roll, thinking nothing of the request. After all, the varying thicknesses of the rolls had been determining their positions on the walls of the room.
But this roll was difficult. It was wrapped in a layer of cotton cloth, suggesting that there was a greater degree of disintegration than on other rolls. Dean bent to examine the roll through a tear in the cotton cloth.
As he lowered his head, he felt a rush of air by his ear and a sound like a stone in water by the side of his head.
“Hot pipe!” he exclaimed, falling to his side. He looked at the roll and saw Emerson’s bowie knife embedded into the roll, the shaft still quivering from the force of the impact. He looked at Emerson, who shrugged his shoulders, eyes cold and impassive above the improvised mask.
“Guess it slipped out of my hand on a awkward knot,” the workman said blandly.
BEYOND THE FUEL STORE, a similar fate was to befall Jak.
In one of the rooms, he and Rysh were putting shelving into what would be the food store. They had screws and bracketing for the shelves, but there was only the one screwdriver between the two of them. The only other screwdriver on site being used by Hay, who was in another room installing doors with the help of Doc.
Rysh pushed a shelf plank toward Jak. “Pick up some brackets and put it on that wall,” he snapped.
A gleam of fire showed in the albino’s eyes, but he kept calm in the face of provocation and turned to the wall Rysh had indicated. Placing the plank against the wall, he took some brackets from the pile in the middle of the room and sufficient screws from a large earthenware jar.
“Screwdriver,” he said evenly, indicating his need.
Jak spoke as he turned, and it was only his incredible reflexes that saved him. For Rysh had decided to pass him the screwdriver by the simple expedient of throwing it at him like a knife.
The mutie albino saw the sharply pointed instrument speed across the room, and his hunting and survival instincts took over. For Jak, time seemed to slow almost to a halt as the screwdriver hung in midair, his instincts racing fast enough to make the progress of the object in flight seem almost stationary.