“What’s that?” J.B. asked.
“It was the honeymoon capital of North America.”
“What’s that mean?” Dean asked.
“It means that after people got married, they’d come here to, uh, celebrate by spending a lot of time in bed together.”
“Oh.”
“So that’s why the sec man said there were plenty of places to spend the night here,” Krysty said.
J.B. smiled. “Good. I could use a good night’s rest.”
“Not up to a little honeymoon, John?” Mildred chided.
“Oh, I’ll be up for it,” J.B. responded dryly.
At that moment they crested a rise in the road and suddenly Falls ville and the lake beyond it stretched out before them. There were dozens of buildings around the ville that had been destroyed by the shock waves from the initial nuke blasts, or the aftershocks that followed. But despite the damage, there were still several structures intact, such as the one that looked like a saucer set upon a knife that overlooked the water, and a cluster of buildings huddled together in the center of the ville.
The lake to the south was as big as an ocean, but was spotted by sandbars and dry patches along the shore. Water flowed over a horseshoe-shaped ridge, but it flowed only over two sections in the center of the horseshoe. The rest of the curve was dry and home to several large water birds.
“The falls have almost run dry,” Mildred said. “In predark times you’d be able to hear the water roaring from here. Millions of gallons of fresh water every minute, day and night, 365 days a year.”
“Now falls like rain,” Jak commented.
“Producing enough electricity to operate one farm, but not enough for an entire ville,” J.B. said.
“There’s something else I just realized,” Mildred said.
“What is it?” Ryan asked.
“If that’s Niagara Falls,” she said, taking a look at the geography around her, “then we’re on the Canadian side of what used to be the border.”
Chapter Six
“Being located in Canada would explain a lot about the construction of the gateway,” Ryan said.
“Anyone using it would be looking to get out of the country in a hurry,” J.B. surmised. “So it probably served as an escape hatch, mebbe for military commanders or politicians.”
“But there’s such a large underground system of redoubts and installations,” Krysty said. “Why would a one-way escape gateway be needed?”
“Things go wrong,” J.B. suggested. “Even underground fortresses can be infiltrated, especially from the inside. That gateway could get someone out of one hot spot without the risk of them landing in another one.”
Krysty considered J.B.’s reasoning. “So the trip through the gateway was meant to be one-way.”
“Someone going through that gateway likely wasn’t welcome back in the United States, probably wouldn’t want to go back to it, either.”
“All this talk of travel has made me rather famished,” Doc interjected. “Might it be possible to have one of those delectable fruits we are carrying?”
Ryan took a good look around. He hadn’t seen a mutie for some time. Although he had noticed a few of the creatures following the friends earlier on, they had dropped away now that the ville was near. They had another half hour before they reached it, and the route looked like fairly easy going. They had time to snack now while they walked, but when they entered the ville, they would need to be on the alert. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to eat something now.”
“I’ll have a peach, then,” Doc said, quickly pulling one of the fuzzy fruit from the bag he was carrying.
“Me, too,” Dean said.
Doc tossed Dean the peach he was about to eat, then pulled a second one from the bag for himself.
“I’ve got apples and pears in this bag,” J.B. said.
“Apricots and plums in mine,” Krysty added.
“I’ll have a few of each,” Mildred said. “My father used to make the best plum sauce in three counties. We’d have it on pancakes every Sunday after church.”
Krysty handed Mildred a handful of deep purple and golden-yellow fruits.
“I’ll have a pear,” J.B. said. “How about you, Krysty, Ryan, Jak?”
“Apple,” Jak said.
“Pear for me,” Ryan said.