Watching them drive off, Harold scrambled down the stairs to follow them, a plan already forming in his mind. He wanted to jump onto their wag from above, but the voices told him to follow the strangers and wait until after they had eaten. Food would make them sleepy. That was the time to strike.
Chapter Seven
“Dinner will be ready soon,” Ryan announced, turning over the steaks with a pair of tongs. The tantalizing smell was making everyone anxious in anticipation, but the meat wouldn’t be served until thoroughly cooked and there wasn’t the slightest trace of pink on the inside. He was going to make damn sure there would be no case of poisoning from the wild animal.
The interior of the pawnshop was warm and well lit. There had been some camping lanterns, which still contained a quantity of kerosene, and gave them all the light needed. The windows were covered with layers of thick blankets from the upstairs apartments to keep the lights from giving away their location through the frosty windows.
Ryan remembered the Trader teaching him that while banks made good bolt-holes with their stout walls and bulletproof windows, and high schools were excellent for long-term bases with their machine shops, libraries and such, for a short stay, pawnshops were the best. Stout iron bars covered the windows, and a flexible steel grating completely masked the front window. Even the back door was a solid slab of wood with 54-gauge sheet steel bolted over the whole thing. And they were often undisturbed, as most folks had no idea what the classic three brass balls of the store meant anymore. Almost always there were piles of useful supplies inside.
The shop consisted of one large room with a center island of heavy tables covered with speakers, stereos, air conditioners, television sets and assorted electrical equipment. A brace of sec cameras hung impotently from the ceiling, and a glass-topped counter ran around the walls. The left-side counter was covered with racks of musical instruments, while the right was jammed full of blasters—rifles and shotguns of every type imaginable. Not an inch of wall space was unused. Inside the waist-high glass cases were rows of wallets, watches, cell phones, pagers and a vast array of pistols.
He flipped over the steaks and dodged a fat spit of frying grease. True, the ancient blasters were useless, the barrels and mechanisms clogged with clots of dried oil, but with a good cleaning there were enough blasters here to outfit an army. And a whole display case of handblasters, also deadweight until disassembled and cleaned and oiled. A few were still in their sales boxes; being unused, they were in a lot better condition than the rest. In the back vault—actually an old-fashioned standing safe resembling a cast-iron refrigerator—they had located trays of diamond rings, and other pretty jewelry, deeds to cars and homes that no longer existed and a lot of ammo. Also dead. Cordite lasted a lot longer than black powder or gunpowder, but after two hundred years even the best deteriorated into a goop as explosive as dandruff.
A bowling trophy case in the corner of the pawnshop had been easily converted into a rough kitchen, the trophies removed to hold any of the canned goods from the apartment upstairs that Mildred deemed edible. Incredibly, there had even been a spice rack, and the Deathlands warrior knew from experience that a few centuries only made most spices tastier. Which was just about the only good thing that ever came out of skydark.
“Mmm. Smells ready,” Jak said, his stomach rumbling at the idea of cooked meat. It had been hours since their meager breakfast of cold beans, and even the raw wolf was starting to smell good. He remembered being hungrier than this, but not for a while.
“Anytime is good for me,” J.B. added, sitting in a cane-back chair, the Uzi in his lap. He was situated right next to the front door, keeping an ear on the street outside. The only sounds were the whispery desert winds and the occasional hoot of an owl.
Repacking the instruments from the med kit in precise order for ease of use in an emergency, Mildred glanced up from her work. “Are you sure the Hummer is going to be okay in that garage next door? Without it, we have a long walk back to the redoubt.”