“Don’t like this,” Ryan said with a frown. “The damn place is in perfect condition. As if everybody simply stopped moving for a hundred years.”
“Not quite everybody,” Doc rumbled, pointing upward with the LeMat.
Rising above the factories and homes were the monolithic skyscrapers of downtown. Stretched between two of the high rises was a giant web, exactly like the one they had seen on Spider Island.
“Now we know where the bones came from,” Ryan said.
“Gonna need some Molotov cocktails,” J.B. stated, hefting his unusually light munitions bag. “Those worked last time.”
“Sort of,” Mildred corrected.
“There’s a beer plant,” Dean said, indicating a building down the street. “We can get bottles there.”
“Keep your eyes peeled for a gas station,” Ryan said, starting down the middle of the street.
“Need the soap powder from a laundry, too,” Krysty added, the Webley feeling heavy in her hand. Her knuckles had been badly skinned in the rock climb, and the weapon was already christened with specks of blood.
HIGH ABOVE the silent streets, something watched the seven people proceed deeper into the heart of the city.
The newcomers were wounded and poorly dressed, but with good boots and very well-armed. This indicated a high probability that they were scavengers who had raided a supply dump. Thus additional weapons may not be in visual range. Grens were almost a certainty, and possibly even an energy weapon a portable microwave beamer, or Bedlow laser. Such lethal armament was not to be taken lightly, and willful self-termination was authorized only as a last resort. More data was required to form a course of action.
Closing the blinds, the Walker moved away from the window, stepping off the ceiling and through the door to stealthily make its way down to the ground level. Clearly, further reconnaissance was necessary until it could decide exactly how and when to exterminate the humans.
Chapter Twelve
Walking down the middle of the street between the lines of dead cars, the companions tried to keep a watch in every direction and found it impossible. There were just too many windows, sewers and doorways in the metropolis. If somebody wanted to hide, there was no limit to the places where they could ferret.
“Creepy,” Mildred said, fighting a shiver. “I’ve been in plenty of ruins, but this place, well, it isn’t ruins. It’s just old and empty. I keep expecting the traffic lights to click on, and the cars to start moving again.”
“This was no nuke attack,” Krysty said, watching the tattered remains of cloth curtains fluttering in the open window of a second-floor apartment, a red ceramic flowerpot balanced precariously on the sill. “Mebbe poison gas.”
“Or a neutron bomb,” J.B. said, watching the reflection of the passing companions in the plate-glass window of a millinery store. “Damn thing only aced people and machines but did no damage to the buildings. Got no idea how it worked.”
Mildred started to explain about jacketing a tactical nuke with deutronium-rich water and tritium injectors, then stopped herself. The details weren’t important. Only the results.
Going to a police car, Ryan studied the interior, then smashed in the glass with the barrel of his Web-ley. The green squares of the safety glass scattered underfoot. Reaching in, he took the pump-action shotgun out of the skeleton hands of the dead officer and racked the slide. A shell came out and he closely inspected it. The plastic was firm, not brittle, the brass bottom shiny and without any signs of age or corrosion.
“Looks good,” he said, tossing it to J.B.
The Armorer made the catch. “Yeah, if the whole place is like this, we’ll be ass deep in supplies.”
“This city is so dead,” Krysty said. “I can feel the death laying over these buildings.”
There were skeletons inside almost every car with the windows closed, piles of bones behind the steering wheels, briefcases on the passenger seats, foam coffee cups still perched on the dashboards.
“You sensing anything alive?” he added.
“In every direction,” the redhead said. “Plants, animals, things I can’t describe, but no human life.” She paused. “Or rather, nothing I call human.”
“‘For a thousand silent ghosts trod the ancient way, seeking a speaking to those warm and alive,'” Doc said softly in his singsong voice.