There were too many potholes to safely ride the bikes, so the companions turned the machines off to save fuel, and walked the vehicles through the maze of depressions, always keeping one hand on the handlebars and the other filled with a blaster.
Reaching the front gate, the companions stood guard while J.B. checked the lock. A plump rat scurried along the top of the wall, but they withheld chilling the rodent. Dean threw a stone and missed, but the animal ran away in fright.
“Well, we’re not getting in this way,” J.B. finally announced, stepping from the gate and tilting his fedora. “This kind of lock can’t be forced. We’ve got to blow it.”
“Thought so,” Ryan growled. “But it was worth a try.”
“I could climb over,” Dean offered, studying the bars of the gate, “and pull the lever in the kiosk. Easy.”
“Gate’s electric, not mechanical,” his father stated, pointing to the exposed power cables. “Without power, it still wouldn’t open.”
“We could all climb over,” the boy insisted.
Ryan thought about the suggestion. “Too risky,” he decided. “We’re going to need the bikes to carry ammo.”
“Then blow the lock,” Krysty said, almost firing as something large dashed from one crumbling house to another.
“Plas make lot noise,” Jak pointed out succinctly, his hands crossed at the wrists to support the heavy Magnum blasters. “Gonna attract stuff.”
“We could recce the ruins,” Mildred suggested hesitantly, shifting her hold on the Thompson. “Find some mattress to muffle the sound of the explosion.”
“Nobody goes in those houses,” Ryan stated grimly. “I’d rather ask a baron for mercy.
“Besides,” he added softly, feeling things watch their every move, “the muties already know that we’re here.”
J.B. rummaged in his munitions bag. He extracted a piece of C-4 and molded the claylike charge into a small wad the size of a walnut.
“Ten seconds,” he called, stabbing a timing pencil into the plastique and breaking it off in the middle.
Quickly, the companions retreated. There was a muffled bang from the lock and the gate flew open, leaving a contrail of smoke in its wake as it loudly crashed against the brick wall.
The companions waited to see if there was any response to the noise, but only the faint noises from the jungle below could be heard, along with the ever present sheet lightning and thunder from the tortured sky.
Leaning against the wall, Jak stayed on guard while the others rolled the bikes through the gate. Dean went to the kiosk and raised the striped wooden beam blocking the entrance. As the motorcycles rolled by, he noticed that inside the kiosk skeletons were sprawled on a table covered with playing cards and matchsticks. Lucky bastards never knew what hit them.
Then a shot rang out, and the companions spun with weapons raised.
“They attacking?” Krysty demanded, taking a step.
“Not anymore,” the teenager stated, walking backward into the compound.
On the street, something hidden in the weeds made a guttural noise and went still. Inside the ruins, skulking creatures retreated to the safety of the darkness, one of them consuming a squealing rat that was not long from dead.
“Mayhap I should stay here and sound a ballyhoo if there is trouble,” Doc offered, pulling the spare Webley from his belt and thumbing back the hammer, only to ease it down again. Unlike the LeMat, the Webley was double action and didn’t require setting the hammer as a prerequisite to firing. The scholar suddenly realized that differences between the two weapons might be confusing in a fight and cost lives, so he decided to dispose of the Webley at the first chance.
“We stay together,” Ryan stated with the SIG-Sauer drawn, climbing on the Harley and pressing the ignition button. The bike purred into life.
“Dean, close the gate. Bind it with some rope, a belt, whatever you got.”
“Done,” the boy said, shouldering the longblaster.
Under the watchful blasters of the others, Dean pulled out his bowie knife and cut away the power cable leading to the defunct motors for the gate, then used the insulated wiring to bind the entrance shut.
“That’ll hold,” he said, dusting off his hands.