Doc slid off his frock coat and it was gratefully accepted. “I shall fix the flat tire on the Hummer while you shop among the trucks for undamaged MRE packs. It will be warmer than the exposed street.”
“Okay, by me,” J.B. chattered, buttoning the garment shut. Lying on the sand, he had been warmed by the stored heat from the day. Standing, the desert winds took it away, chilling him to the bone. Hadn’t been this cold since the Zarks. “Just hurry, okay?”
“I shall endeavor to do so, sir,” Doc replied. As he rounded the corner, he leaned heavily on his cane, the lantern held high to light the way.
Watching where he stepped, J.B. poked though the glowing rubble, gathering items and stuffing them into the voluminous pockets of the coat. Actually, Doc had been correct; it was a lot warmer here amid the twisted metal, and the Armorer felt better with each passing minute. Whatever the toxin was the bats made, it clearly wasn’t lethal. Maybe just knocked a victim out so the muties could feed at their leisure. Grisly thought.
Several minutes later, Doc drove the Hummer alongside the ruined trucks, and J.B. stumbled inside, the frock coat bulging.
“Ah, thanks.” He sighed, rubbing his hands before the vent. The military heater was turned on full force, sending out waves of hellishly hot air. “Feels wonderful.”
“My own pleasure,” Doc said, starting to drive, both hands streaked with grease, a knuckle bleeding slightly. “If I owned a brass monkey, it would now be singing soprano.”
J.B. laughed. “Good one.”
“Find anything?”
Feeling the numbness leave his cheeks, J.B. patted the bulging coat. “A few souvenirs, and enough food to keep us going for a week.”
“Excellent. Now our top priority is to get inside and get you outside something hot.”
“Sounds good.” With fumbling fingers, the Armorer snapped the window shut just as there came the faint sound of blasterfire.
Immediately, Doc killed the lights and slowed the Hummer. “That was close by. Could it be our escaped sec man?”
“Wrong caliber. He had a .38, those were smoothbore muzzle-loaders.”
“Perhaps additional people being herded into the tunnel by wolves,” Doc suggested, as if not believing the notion himself. He sucked on the cracked knuckle and flexed his hand.
“Or Krysty and Ryan leaving in a hurry,” J.B. countered. “We better go check, just in case.”
The noises came again. A machine gun chattered, the dull thud of a gren, and one of the searchlight beams disappeared.
“That’s them,” J.B. said, hauling the Uzi into view. “Go!”
Shifting gears, Doc stomped on the gas, and the Hummer peeled away from the curb, leaving billowing dust clouds in its wake.
Chapter Eighteen
A hand reached around the sagging door frame of the wooden barrier closing off the front of the tunnel and blindly fired a blaster three times. The shots zinged off the tiled ceiling and into the distance.
“Now,” Ryan snapped, kneeling behind some garbage and carefully aiming the Steyr SSG-70.
Krysty cried out in pain and fell to the tunnel floor. After a few moments, a sec man peeked around the door and Ryan blew away a chunk of his temple. The body collapsed onto the sandy ground, his rusty blaster rolling out of sight. Unseen hands dragged the corpse out of the doorway. Once again, all that could be seen through the sagging door in the barrier was a waist-high sandbag wall and the ruins beyond.
“That’s two down,” the woman said, getting back up. “How many were there to start, four or six?”
“Don’t recall,” Ryan growled, firing at the left side of the barrier. The 7.62 mm round slammed into the wood, but didn’t penetrate.
“Fireblast,” he cursed. “Damn thing is made out of different kinds of planks. Sometimes I get through— most often I don’t.”
Glancing over a shoulder, Krysty noted the tiny specks of lantern light were a lot closer. She sprayed a few bursts at them, but got no answering cry of pain. Damn sec men had to have the lanterns hanging from the ends of sticks or something. No way she could target the guards.
“Range?” Ryan asked, the Steyr held loosely in his grip, his single eye wide for any indication of the guards.