[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

According to the map, they had first hung a right onto North Lake Shore Drive,
then a left on Pearson Street.
"One way here, J.B., and we're going the wrong direction," Ryan said, trying
to lighten the leaden gloom inside the wag.
But the Armorer didn't even reply, leaning forward over the steering wheel,
hunched up, eyes fixed on the rubble-strewn highway ahead.
Every now and again they would see what had obviously been one of Chicago's
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d17 Fury's Pilgrims larger buildings. Whereas most had been reduced to level
ashes, some stood like
Jennison tombstones from the Civil War. Great black monoliths of scorched
concrete and twisted girders.
At one point they passed by a series of low bridges, linked by drooping
lengths of once-molten metal.
"That's the El," Mildred said.
"What was that?" Dean asked.
"A sort of railway. You know. Wags that ran along an iron highway through the
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city to take commuters and& Let it pass, Dean, will you?"
Every so often the road would be completely blocked with debris, sometimes
piled five stories high. If there was no way around it or over it, then J.B.
pushed the wag into reverse and ground back until there was a side route
opened up.
"Sure brings back the old times, don't it, guys?" Abe said.
"Yeah," Ryan agreed. It was true. Rattling along on the steel tracks did
recall so many occasions, both the good and the bad, riding the huge war wags
with the
Trader.
"Wish I'd known him longer. Better. Must've been an amazing man." Krysty was
standing close to Ryan again, leaning on his shoulder.
"Yeah. Bright light went out that day when he walked off into the trees."
"Mebbe," Abe said.
"Mebbe? Don't give me that shit, Abe. Trader's deader than a beaver hat. You
know it. Ryan knows it. I know it. And I can tell you, sure as shit, that the
Trader knows it."
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J.B. rarely revealed so much of his emotion, his lips narrowed, his eyes half-
closed behind the polished lenses of his spectacles.
"Hey, you don't know shit, John Dix!"
The brakes came on, throwing everyone forward in their seats. "That so, Abe?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Mildred laughed, breaking the sudden tenseness. "You're like a couple of snot-
nose kids in a school-yard, boasting about whose old man can knock the block
off the other."
J.B. sniffed. "Shouldn't have fired half-cocked like that, Abe."
"Hell, that's okay. But I still say we don't rightly know what happened to the
Trader."
"He died, Abe," J.B. insisted.
"Don't start again," Ryan warned.
"Sure. But what's your opinion?" Abe was standing, gripping one of the roof
handholds.
"I always thought that& Fireblast! He was real sick, old and tired. Just never
thought he could still be living. No way. No way at all. We'd have heard,
Abe."
"There've been rumors." Krysty sounded uncertain. "Haven't there?"
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d17 Fury's Pilgrims
"Sure." J.B. agreed.
"Well& " Abe began, obviously ready to carry on the argument.
"Shut it up," Ryan snapped. "Two things. Trader's dead, like I believe. Or he
isn't.
If he still lives, we'll run across him one of these days. Until then, just
get us going, J.B., will you?"
THEY SAW NOBODY.
The only occasional signs of life were some unusually large mutie rats, great
big gray-brown brutes, bigger than cats.
They scampered among the charcoal devastation, some of them turning their
questing muzzles toward the stationary vehicle. Ryan stared blankly at them,
wondering what they found to eat in this sterile emptiness.
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"Close to the Chicago River," J.B. commented, pointing at the narrow blue line
on the comp map in front of him.
Ryan was looking away to the southwest. "My imagination, or you reckon there
look to be some untouched buildings off that way?"
"Could be."
"I can lead us in prayer for salvation from this drear place," Brother Michael
offered. But nobody took him up on it.
"Pray as much as you like." Ryan looked over his shoulder. "Won't do any harm.
But it might not do any good, neither."
"Overheating," J.B. said.
"Need water?"
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"No. Mebbe switch her off for a spell. Let her cool down."
Ryan nodded. "Sure. Open the doors and everyone can stretch their legs."
The sudden silence was startling.
Everyone climbed out of the wag, staring around at the bleak wilderness. The
birds circling overhead began to shriek at the movement, a thin, keening
sound, like the wind blowing between deserted tombs in a mountainside
cemetery.
At street level, the devastation was overwhelming. The tumbled walls were
streaked with deep scorch marks, seared into the concrete and brick. The
remains of what must have been sidewalk lamps were sliced clear off, about
eighteen inches from the ground. Their stumps ended in bubbles of once-molten
metal. The powdered shards of thousands of windows still sparkled in the
sheltered corners.
"Are all of the big cities like this?" Brother Michael asked.
"Newyork is worse, damn near nuked flat. Rivers broke in and flooded the low
parts." Ryan looked at J.B. "Washington was wiped away."
"Yeah. That was where it all began."
"What?"
"Beginning," Mildred replied.
The young man looked puzzled. "Beginning? But I thought& "
"The end," she added.
"How's that?"
"The beginning of the end. You truly don't know anything about how the world
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d17 Fury's Pilgrims was?"
"When?"
"When you were an& What was that strange word again, Doc?"
"An oblate. Brother Michael was an oblate up at the community of Nil-Vanity in
the Sierras. But they kept themselves closed off from the rest of the
civilized world." He paused. "The so-called civilized world."
The teenager nodded. "Right, Doc. Like I said, we had no TV or news. Supplies
were left outside the gates. No strangers. No phone. No talking."
"You never heard about the problems with the Russians after their revolutions
in the early nineties?" Mildred shook her head. "Amazing, isn't it? We trawl
one of the eight people in the United States who knows absolutely, totally,
utterly fuck all."
"Tell me. I'm eager to learn."
Ryan had been scanning the horizons, as far as that was possible with the
piles of burned rubble all around them.
Now he turned to face Brother Michael. "You seem to me like you're believing
where you are. When you are."
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"I do, Ryan. I see and I believe."
"Well, sometime we'll fill you in on history. All you need to know is that a
mess of bombs went off in Washington. So they say. Triggered the biggest
fire-fight the world ever saw." He closed his hands together, then parted them
slowly, like flowers opening. "Booooom," he whispered.
"So this dreadful war, when the seals were opened and the horsemen released,
brought a sort of peace to the land?"
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Ryan grinned. "Later, son, later; Right now "
He was interrupted by the burst of semiautomatic fire.
Chapter Twenty-One
Everyone responded in their own way to the sudden attack. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]