“Clear,” Ryan announced in relief.
The Uzi cradled in his arms, J.B. glanced at his own rad counter and nodded in agreement. The area was safe.
Tiny cracks were starting to appear in the smooth flow, and soon small weeds dotted the black ground, the tufts highly visible against the dark material. The greenery thickened until it carpeted the land. Ahead of the companions were trees and bushes, the beginnings of a small forest that appeared to reach all the way to the towering ruins of the predark metropolis. The gleaming towers of steel and concrete rose dozens of stories high, without any apparent sign of corrosion or blast damage.
A flock of birds nesting in the grassy field took flight at the approach of the norms, and Ryan jerked to a halt. The rest of the companions froze, weapons at the ready, when the man knelt and waved them closer.
“We’re not the first to reach the top,” Ryan said, lifting a human skull out of the weeds.
The object was clean, without a sign of flesh, but the bone was still white, not the dusky yellow of a skull long exposed to the inclement weather.
“How old?” Ryan asked, passing it over to the physician.
Mildred turned the skull and checked inside.
“Year,” she stated, biting a lip. “Maybe two. But certainly no longer than that.”
“Not a predark?” Dean asked, leaning in to see.
With a crack, Mildred removed the lower jaw and displayed the pitted yellow, teeth. “All these cavities, and not a sign of dental work?” she said as a question. “No way this man is from my era.”
“Man?” Krysty asked curiously.
“You can tell from the size,” Ryan replied, standing and brushing off his pants. Odd there was only a head in the middle of a field.
A few yards away, Jak gave a sharp whistle.
“More,” the teenager announced, lifting a shiny femur from the grass. Other than the skull, the thigh bone was the most identifiable part of the human skeleton, with its double knuckles at the top and bottom. It also made a damn fine club.
“And over here,” Krysty added, scowling, looking for pelvis bones. The bones were all mixed together, cracked open and chewed by animals, and some folks carried away skulls of their enemies as trophies. Counting the number of hipbones was the only way to get an accurate number of skeletons.
“Nine,” she announced after a couple of minutes. “Could have been a hunting party. Or raiders.”
Trying not to step on any bones, Mildred joined the redhead. “Yeah, they’re all adult males, but look there, some of these are white, some brittle and yellow.” The physician lifted her head and pulled her blaster. “I think this is the dumping spot for the something that has been chilling folks for decades.”
“The gorillas?” Krysty asked in concern. Mildred vehemently shook her head. “I saw the teeth of those muties. They were big, but herbivores. Meat eaters aced these men.”
“Found their weapons,” Dean announced, standing and wiping the dirt off a broken knife. The metal was green with corrosion, holes eaten completely through the blade.
Ambling over, Ryan saw the scattered remains of carved bone and bits of plastic mixed together, the steel weapons reduced to mere ghostly outlines of rust. Lifting the largest piece of metal, Ryan studied it carefully.
“What is this, a matchlock? No, a pipe gun,” he said, the cumbersome weapon crumbling under his touch. The primitive longblaster was merely an iron pipe with a hole in the top for a fuse, and a wooden stock closed off the rear end. That was it. Load the muzzle, light the fuse, aim and wait. The device was so crude it made a flintlock look like a nuke.
“Dark night, nobody on the islands would use these anymore,” J.B. stated. “This guy must have bought the farm a long time ago. A lot more than a couple of years.”
Mildred shook her head. “This is new bones on top of old weapons. Layers of people died over the decades.”
Glancing at the field and forest, Ryan rubbed his chin to the sound of sandpaper. “Folks must have been trying to reach the ruins for quite a while, and something always stopped them right here.”