Plaguesville, USA

by Jim LaVigne

  “See? Now I ask you again: Was that a smart move?”

  Lumler frowned deeply and held his tongue. Even if no one could hear him, speaking ill of the Governor was about as smart as taking a picnic in the Rad Zone. Especially for a PF man. But he had to admit; Santiago was right. For the present, he allowed a shake of his wide head.

  “I dunno,” he said bleakly. “I mean, hell, maybe I’m wrong about Knox. Who knows? Maybe he’s just, whatchacallit? Eccentric.”

  “Uh huh,” said Santiago skeptically. “You just keep tellin’ yourself that.”

  “Hey, get bent, OK?” Lumler growled. “Shit, it’s easy for you. Yer a Medico. Nobody’s gonna touch your precious ass! But me?” He looked around reflexively and lowered his voice. “Shit, you know as well as I do, if anybody heard me sayin’ somethin’ against the Governor I’d be on the front line so fast it’d make my fuckin’ head spin! An’ personally? Fightin’ deformo freaks—deformos with guns, even—well, friend, that just ain’t my idea of a good time!” He leaned back and glared across the table. “So you can just put a lid on that shit. Say what you want when yer around yer Medico buddies, but when yer around me?”

  “OK, OK,” said Santiago, patting the air. “Take it easy! I was just gassin’ is all. We’ll just drop it, alright? No harm done?”

  Lumler looked around again. There was no one who could have even possibly heard his outburst, aside from the decrepit old specimen at the counter (who was about three years older than God and probably deaf as a brick, if not asleep), and so he relaxed a little and sat back in the booth. He eyed his friend and then gave a short laugh.

  “That’s what I like about you, man,” he said. “Always thinkin’. Where you from, anyway? Never got a chance to ask.”

  “Tacoma,” said the other. “Born and bred. Lived there my whole life. Had a nice little practice, too. Specialized in large animals. Horses, mostly.”

  “Family?”

  “A wife and a daughter,” said Santiago. “Both died of the Sick.”

  Lumler nodded. If this had been Before, he would have offered some sort of condolences to the man for his loss, but since everyone had lost someone dear to them in the Fall, making it a sort of shared pain, a commonplace occurrence, he didn’t bother.

  “What about you?” asked Santiago, looking at Lumler over his mug. “I know you’re from around here, but what else? What did you do Before?”

  “Not much,” said Lumler honestly. “Worked in a warehouse. Had an apartment.”

  “Any family?”

  “Just my mom,” said Lumler. “An’ she died oh, what? About a year before the Fall.”

  “Missed all the fun, huh?” smiled Santiago grimly. “Well, good for her.”

  They sipped the acrid brew and watched the work crew as they moved on to the next lamppost. Santiago took out a plastic baggie of shredded tobacco and some papers and deftly rolled himself a smoke. The smell of it, once lit, was like burning paper and dung.

  “You heard of this character they call the Hunter?” asked Santiago, exhaling smoke. “Little guy, shaved head, like, heavily armed?”

  “Only rumors,” said Lumler. “We’re supposed to leave him alone. The Police, that is. All I heard about him is he was some kinda big-shot bounty hunter before the Fall. But it don’t matter, anyhow. He won’t be around long.”

  “No? Why’s that?”

  “Some kinda job,” said Lumler, frowning in concentration. “The Governor gave him some kinda, I dunno, a mission or somethin’.”

  “What mission?”

  “Find somebody,” shrugged Lumler. “What he does, ain’t it? Like the name says: Hunter.”

  “Yeah, but who? Is it somebody here, in New America?”

  “Doubtful. If the Governor wanted to find somebody here, he’d use the PF to find ‘em. Naw, what I heard was, he’s supposed to find some kinda Medico. Or group of Medicos.”

  “Doctors?’ said Santiago. “Out there, in the wasteland? That’s weird.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Lumler. “But you doctor types are like pure gold these days. Maybe the Governor just wants more of ya.”

  “Could be,” Santiago said, crushing out his smoke on the floor. “With the War and all, we sure as hell could use the help.”

  Lumler grunted and nodded, about to summon the waitress for more brew, when suddenly his radio chirped and then the voice of a dispatcher—Janice, he thought—came on:

  “Sergeant Lumler, please report.”

  Taking the receiver from its Velcro holster, Lumler thumbed the send button.

  “Lumler here.”

  “Sergeant Lumler,” said the woman officiously, “report at once to Interrogation Center Two. Repeat: Report at once to IC number Two. Acknowledge, please.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Lumler. “On my way.”

  “Confirmed,” said the dispatcher. “Dispatch out.”

  Lumler shrugged at his friend. “You heard the woman,” he sighed, “duty calls.”

  “Yeah, me too,” said Santiago, getting up. “Got a whole slate of check-ups today, over at the Big Time.”

  “The whorehouse?” scoffed Lumler, donning his cap and rising. “Nice. Shit, how do I get to be a Medico?”

  “Well, there’s the problem, my friend,” said Santiago, holding the door. “No colleges, no med schools, no doctors. They just don’t make ‘em anymore.”

  “Yeah,” grimaced Lumler. “Jus’ like everything else.”

  Chapter Eight

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  Lying flat on his face in a ditch, some prickly plant stabbing him in the groin, and his legs aching from exertion, Justin thought that maybe he hadn’t picked the right man for the job after all. He’d done a fine job on Dr. Poole’s leg, from what he could tell, but this, running and tripping and falling down into pricker patches and onto sharp rocks as his comrades sang and danced around a bonfire, hoping that a shot wouldn’t suddenly ring out, preparatory to a bullet slamming into his head, well, that was obviously well beyond his capabilities. In fact, there was really only one thing that was even more beyond them, the guts to make someone else do it. And so there he was.

  Swearing to himself, sweating despite the chill of the night, he dug out the trinoculars from the heavy satchel on his back and uncapped the lenses. Careful to not look back at the fire, he adjusted the little wheel on the top for the conditions and scanned the nearby landscape. The UV scope revealed nothing, just rocks and bushes and dirt, but the IR showed several heat-blobs. He peered closely at these shapes, but decided finally that none was large enough to be a human being. Probably rabbits or some other kind of rodent. Satisfied, he re-capped the trinocs and returned them to the satchel.

  Next he took out the case with the metal detector (actually a medical device used to find bullets and other matter in wounded bodies), unpacked it, switched it on, and went to work. This entailed stooping down, almost crawling, and waving the stupid thing over each square foot of dirt and rock in the wild hope that the little light on it would suddenly flash red. And, having covered only a few dozen square yards in almost two hours of effort, already very tired, achy, and generally scared stiff, all for a few old cans and pieces of waste metal, he was starting to wonder if Lampert’s plan had been such a great idea after all. Matter of fact, it was starting to seem downright ludicrous. Doggedly, though, he kept at it; what else could he do?

  An hour later, having fruitlessly swept another ten square yards or so, he was about to pack up the detector when suddenly something crashed heavily onto his back, he was driven face-first into the dirt, and, before he could even wonder what the hell was happening, everything went
black.

  When he came to, intensely groggy and with no idea how long he’d been out, he was lying flat on his back, staring up at a starlit sky so full of little points of light as to seem almost a solid blanket. Bemusedly, he reflected that this was at least one good result of the Fall; he had certainly never seen stars like this in New Atlanta!

  He smiled a little, but the meager effort cost him a terrible pain in the back of his head and he winced and shut his eyes. What was he doing, lying on the ground like this? Where was everybody? Why did his head hurt so badly? And then, recalling his colleagues, their prized patient, and their mission, memories came pumping back into his battered brain and he remembered it all. But what had happened? What had hit him?

  Experimentally, he opened one eye, trying to ignore the pain in his head, and looked around, but all he could see were some moonlit bushes and rocks and a couple of slim tree trunks. But then the tree trunks moved and he saw that they were actually someone’s ankles. Terrified, he clapped his eye shut and tried to seem like he was still unconscious, but whoever the ankles belonged to was having none of it.

  “I know yer ‘wake,” said a very soft voice, as the feet stopped next to his head. “No use in playin’.”

  The voice was, unexpectedly, that of a woman and he thought that it seemed somehow familiar, but between the pain in his head and the desperate nature of his situation, neither fact seemed much to matter. Gingerly, he re-opened one eye and peeked up.

  Standing over him, black against the starry sky, was Teresa, the young woman from the Bloodclaw gang. She was dressed as he’d seen her before, in tight leathers that more than accentuated her curves, and holding a sawed-off shotgun lazily in one hand. He couldn’t see her face in the dark, but just the shape and outline of it reminded him of how stunningly beautiful she was. Momentarily alarmed that she was not alone, he opened his other eye and looked quickly around, but there were only bushes and rocks. If there were more Bloodclaws anywhere nearby, they were not making themselves obvious.

  Trying to ignore the pain in his head and feeling, for some reason, a bit more at ease knowing that his assailant was female, he tried to smile at the young woman.

  “Uh… hello,” he said lamely, his voice rough. “Teresa, isn’t it?”

  “S’right,” she said, nodding. “An’ what yer tag, whitecoat?”

  “My tag? Oh, yes, my name. I’m Dr. Justin Kaes. I’m from the Center for Disease Control in New Atlanta.”

  “Yeh,” said the young woman, cutting him off. “We heard’a all that gink an’ ploop a’ready. Don’ care about none a’ that.”

  She went quiet, but he could feel her staring at him. For a long, uncomfortable moment he waited, but when she didn’t seem inclined to say anything more, finally spoke up.

  “So, um,” he struggled, “if you don’t mind my asking, was there some reason you attacked me? What… what are your plans? For me, that is.”

  “Heh,” said Teresa wryly. “I got plenny plans for you, Medico. Dontcha worry ‘bout that. Now you just lie still for a coupla ticks. And then we need’a get movin’.”

  “Moving?” said Justin warily. “Um, where are we going? I can’t just leave my people and—”

  “Shuddup,” she said, again cutting him dead. “Jus’ do what I say an’ ya’ll be jus’ juicy, right? But you do one dumb thing, like tryin’ to rabbit, and I letcha have both barrels of this here scatgun. Got it?”

  “Er, yes,” he blinked. “I think I understand.”

  He waited again as she went through his pack, grunting appreciatively, before slinging it over her shoulder. Then she stood up, waved the gun at him, and gestured towards the inky landscape.

  “Right,” she said. “Now zoom. That way.”

  “But where are we going?” asked Justin desperately, struggling to his knees.

  “That way,” she said again. “Now get goin’.”

  With a grunt, his head threatening to split, he got to his feet, wobbled a little, and then stood up. Gingerly, he felt of the back of his head and found a nice-sized lump but, thankfully, no bleeding. Probably only a slight concussion.

  “You live,” said Teresa. “Just tapped ya a little on the bean, heh. Now c’mon. Walk.”

  And so walk he did. For what seemed like many miles, given his aching head and leaden limbs, he trudged along, over rocks and bushes and across ravines and old abandoned roads, all the while keenly aware of the shotgun muzzle at his back and that, with every step, he was moving farther away from Mr. Lampert, his colleagues, and his mission. Around them the night was quiet, with just a hint of low wind, and, though there was no moon, the stars were so bright that he could see at least a few feet in front of himself. Finally, just as he was considering asking for a break, shotgun or no, Teresa poked him in the back with the gun and gestured down a dry creekbed.

  “There,” she said, pointing. “Go.”

  Big bushes of some kind soon crowded in on them and then overgrew the creekbed, but a tunnel-like passage had been made and, after a quick hesitation, he dipped his head and moved down into the darkness. They went another twenty yards or so, not far, before he came up short at what looked like a solid wall of corrugated metal. Here Teresa produced a small flashlight and gave it to him.

  “Shine it here,” she said, tucking the shotgun under one arm.

  Doing as directed, Justin flipped on the light and, following her gestures, pointed it at what he now saw was a door set into the wall of metal, secured with a stout chain and a combination lock. In the bright light, he could see that she was as beautiful as he’d remembered from their previous encounter; indeed, despite the traces of grime and oil and whatnot—or maybe because of them—she was, without a doubt, the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. High cheekbones above a firm but not overbearing jaw, a thin, perfectly tapered nose, huge, lustrous eyes, almost black in color, and a thick-lipped, almost exaggeratedly sensuous mouth. And this crowning a body so perfectly curved and proportioned as to be almost maddening in its perfection. Just being this close to such a wonder of female human beauty made Justin a little lightheaded. Either that, or the huge contusion to his skull.

  “What you gleepin’ at, meat?” she said, and Justin hastily looked away, trying not to blush. “Just hold that light. And don’t look!”

  Turning his head to the surrounding underbrush, he waited until he heard the lock snapping open and the chain being moved. Somewhere nearby, something made a rustling noise as it moved through the bushes, but he couldn’t see anything to account for it. Probably another rabbit.

  “OK, c’mon,” said the woman, and Justin turned back to see that she’d opened the door and was now motioning for him to enter. “In here.”

  Warily, Justin walked across the threshold and into the pitch-black space, finally stopping when he bumped into something with his shins. He turned back and saw Teresa, limned by starlight, shut the door behind them. He was about to say something about light when she flipped a switch near the door and took care of it.

  As far as converted sheet-metal shipping containers went, Justin had to admit that this must be one of the nicest he’d ever seen. Furnished haphazardly but comfortably with a bed, a couch, a table and two chairs, plus a tiny kitchen set-up and a curtained privy, lit by several old table and floor lamps and floored with old carpet remnants, it had a distinctly female cast to it, despite the incongruity of the concept, and was clean, smelled slightly of something lemony, and reminded him oddly of the tiny Japanese flats he’d seen on TV and movies. Yes, for an old shipping crate, it was, if a bit girly in décor and rough around the edges, decidedly homey.

  “Is this your place?” he asked, looking around.

  Teresa didn’t say anything. After unloading the shotgun and stowing the shells in the bag at her side, she stowed the weapon in a convenient cubbyhole by the door and then slung her bag, a bulky messenger’s pouch, plus his own satchel, across a peg on the wall. With a shrug, she also took off her jacket and hung this over the bag. When she tu
rned back to him, Justin saw that her top, a skimpy thing like a leather bikini, barely contained her perfectly round, jutting breasts. He tried not to stare, but suddenly he got the feeling that it didn’t much matter if he did or not; either she wanted him to look or she simply didn’t care if he did. Abashed, he looked away and tried conversation again.

  “It’s very nice,” he said, nodding at the surroundings. “Did you furnish it all yourself?”

  Again, she said not a word and he waited for a good minute before finally looking up. She was just standing there, hipshot, arms lax at her sides and absolutely ravishing, staring at him. Then she took two steps forward, threw her arms around his neck, ground her hips into his, and kissed him so ardently that he almost came in his pants, right there on the spot. And then they were on the bed and it was all arms and legs and soft, wet pressure.

  Looking back on it, Justin would never be able to say for certain one way or another if he’d been raped. In some ways, one could certainly make the case because, technically speaking, he was kidnapped and forced to have sex. On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly what he could call unpleasant. After all, this was a very beautiful, very sexy young woman and if she was perhaps a bit rough for his tastes as far as love-making went, well, she was also the most vigorous and imaginative lover he’d ever had, bar none. Hell, she was a damned goddess. But still, the idea of her simply taking him like she had, giving him no choice… In the end, he’d usually decide that it just didn’t matter if he’d been raped or not; with a woman like Teresa, you took what you could get, and you loved it.

  In the immediate aftermath of their first heated coupling though, sweat drying on his chest, the girl’s leg thrown across his thighs, he didn’t give it much thought. Next to him, Teresa stirred and, propping herself on one elbow, stared into his eyes. Again, he was struck, almost physically, by her beauty.

  “Sorry ‘bout that,” she said, her voice husky. “I din’t hurtcha, did I?”