by Axler, James
Using the poles, the companions guided the rafts into the deep water where the saplings couldn't touch bottom. Drifting freely, Doc and Jak worked the tillers, steering them farther out until land was no longer in sight.
Behind them, a faint trail of smoke was discernible, rising above the horizon from the smoldering remains of the cornfield.
Shifting his weight from boot to boot, Dean tried to gain his balance on the moving raft. "I thought having the tires under the logs would make these things steady," he said, swallowing hard.
"It does," J.B. replied, spooning cold soup from a U.S. Army tin can. "Dark night, you should been with us a few years back when we took a raft trip down the Hudson in Newyork. Now, that was a rough ride."
Slightly green, the boy nodded assent and sat on the deck, waiting for his stomach to catch up with them from the beach.
Hours passed. The companions took turns at the helm and catching up on the sleep lost during the frenzied building of the raft during the night. The gentle current was getting stronger, urging them on a more southerly course, but they angled the rudder against the easy pull and maintained a steady course to the north and Tennessee.
"I make our speed at three knots," J.B. announced, studying the sun overhead. "Not bad."
"Wind is with us," Ryan said, testing the breeze with a damp finger. "That helps."
A bug buzzed near the raft, and a fish leaped from the basin and back into the water. The insect disappeared.
"I'll catch us dinner," Dean said, and unscrewed the handle of his bowie knife, withdrawing line and hooks.
"You'll need bait," Krysty commented, and reached inside a box to retrieve a wad of grease-soaked paper. "Try some of the fatback. It's getting old, and we can't risk eating it anymore."
"Fish love bacon," Jak added, whittling on a sliver of wood from the end of a log. "Rancid, the best."
Cutting off a tiny cube, Dean baited a hook and cast it overboard, raising and lowering the line to suggest life in the bait.
"How odd," Mildred said, kneeling on the raft and almost sticking her face into the water. "Those are barracuda. Saltwater fish."
"Must be muties," J.B. stated, as if that settled the matter.
She stood. "Could be. But they seem to be dying."
"Should they not?" Doc asked, amused.
The physician waved that aside. "That isn't the point. How did ocean fish get this far into a freshwater basin?"
"Mebbe caught by the tide or something."
"Perhaps," she relented. "I only hope that—"
The raft shook hard as it struck something underwater. J.B. shifted the helm, and Ryan did the same.
"Sandbar?" Krysty asked, looking overboard, one hand gripping the ropes tight. "No, look!"
Just below the surface of the water was the wreck of a sailing ship. The hull was smashed inward near the bow, schools of fish darting about the rigging and cabin.
"Obsession," Krysty read off the submerged ship. "Nice name."
As they passed by, Doc reached out with his ebony stick and tapped the propellers. The blades turned without hindrance and spun merrily.
"The engine is gone," Ryan said, frowning. "She's been looted."
Jak grabbed a barge pole and thrust it downward, meeting no resistance. "Clear water," he announced.
"Must be floating freely."
Mildred frowned. "Lord, I hope so."
More and more wreckage filled the waters beneath them until it seemed as if they were sailing over a submerged junkyard of smashed, rotting, vessels.
"Ten o'clock," Ryan warned, pointing at the horizon, one arm on the helm.
A smudge on the horizon grew steadily in size until they could see that the dark mass was a pile of wreckage, rising from the water like an island. An oil tanker lay among a pile of destroyers, gunboats, battleships, aircraft carriers, boats and seagoing vessels of every kind, all jammed together.
"Tumble down?" Jak asked.
Blinking from the windblown spray on his face, Ryan agreed. When skydark raped the world, debris from the nuked cities rained across the continent. The Manhattan blast threw cars and buses across the greater tristate area, the vehicles blown off bridges and shotgunning out of tunnels to fly for a hundred miles from the concussion of the nukes. Houses had been found on mountaintops, toilet seats in the middle of a desert and once Ryan found an intact bridge spanning a grassy field in the middle of nowhere. Anything close to an atomic blast was vaporized, but the objects farther away were melted and sprayed outward, then smashed apart and sent flying, and after that, merely airborne.
"The debris must have been drawn here by the current," Ryan guessed. "Then one ship got caught on a sandbar or mebbe it got entangled with another sunken ship. A second was caught, and so on until there was an island."
"Or maybe it was an oil rig," Mildred said. "But I honestly don't recall if there was any deep-sea drilling going on offshore of North Carolina."
"Want to stop by and see if it's inhabited?" J.B. asked, adjusting his glasses. "Might have some wags we could trade for, salvage."
Ryan frowned. "Pointless to try. Even if we found a wag, how the hell would we get it to the shore? Best keep traveling."
"Besides," Krysty added, placing a hand on her blaster and loosening it in the holster, "after that bastard Poseidon, I don't trust sailors much."
"Amen to that," Mildred added grimly.
RISING FROM HIS CHAIR, the old man shuffled across the bridge of the predark battleship in bare feet, his single garment of stitched canvas highly decorated with embroidery patterns and service medals from a hundred nations.
Slanted windows fronted three sides of the room, affording a panoramic view of the river basin. On a clear day, green haze could be seen from the distant shore, but everywhere else the blue waters of the basin ruled supreme.
The bridge was a half circle of electronic equipment as dead as the previous owners of the vessel. Radar screens were dark and lifeless, radios silent as the deep waters themselves. Near the stairwell, a stove made from an oil drum radiated heat. On top of the stove was a sterling-silver punch bowl full of simmering fish stew, the tiny heads bobbing about staring at nothing amid the long strands of kelp and diced turtle eggs.
Crumbling some dried mold into the stew, the commodore used a spoon carved from a lifeboat to take a taste, then added a bit more. The stores in the holds of the ships that comprised the island were finally running low after so many decades, but that didn't matter anymore, as all of his people would soon be dead.
The thought saddened him, and the whitehair walked to the southern window to gaze out upon the featureless vista of his watery domain. The commodore sighed. The crew of the Navy had lived here since skydark. Sometimes they sent expeditions to the shores for food or tools, but the crew always came back. There didn't seem to be any other living beings in the world. They found ruins, but no people. Just twisted, shambling mockeries of people, mindless creatures who wantonly killed with their clawed hands and howled at the sight of fire. Sometimes a hellhound was found, but thankfully those were rare. And very deadly.
Now the Navy men were alone. The last humans in the world. A plague had swept through the island ville ten winters ago, killing half the population and every woman. Even the babes. For over ten long years, the surviving men had lived in the towering pile of metal. He knew some of his crew found relief doing things the Manifest didn't approve. But if it kept them quiet, so be it. In life, some poor bastard was always the barrelboy.
A smudge of smoke on the western horizon caught his attention, and the whitehair walked to the telescope to train the instrument in that direction. The focus was poor, one lens replaced by a lens from a pair of eyeglasses, but he managed to achieve a kind of clarity. The smoke wasn't the plume of a seagoing vessel heading their way. There was just some sort of fire on the mainland. But under the magnification of the scope, he noticed something moving on the water, moving against the current. How could that be?
At firs
t, he couldn't believe his eyes, thinking madness had finally claimed his mind. But the longer he watched, the more convinced he became that this real. Not a delusion brought on by loneliness and advanced age.
"Women!" the commodore cackled as he adjusted the focus of his telescope. Two tiny rafts were coming this way, and two of the occupants were clearly women, a redhead and a black woman. "Those are women!"
The commodore trembled slightly as the memory of his last woman filled his entire body, the softness of her skin, the weight of a breast in the palm of his hand, the feel of a nipple as it hardened with desire, the scent of her moist passion, the delicious heat as he slid inside.
Then he noticed their position. By the blood of the captain, the rafts were hundreds of yards past the island and dangerously close to the currents'.
Quickly shuffling across the tilted floor of the battleship, the old man tugged repeatedly on a tasseled cord and a bell rang loudly, the peels echoing slightly as they reverberated down the metal hallway of the military ship.
"General quarters!" the whitehair shouted over the bell. "We have company a port beam!"
"Company?" said a big man appearing at the bottom of the angled ladder. Bare chested, he was covered with homemade tattoos, and a machete hung at his right hip. "Who left the island without permission, sir?"
"Nobody, bosun! It's new folks! Fellow survivors!"
Trying to hide a smile, the man looked skeptically at the whitehair. "Been having a nip of the brew again, have we, sir?"
"It's true, you ass!" the commodore yelled. "Outlanders are here, and two are women. Live women!"
The bosun recoiled. "It's a lie."
"No, mate, it's true! See for yourself!"
Bounding up the stairs, he rushed to the telescope and soon found the pair of rafts to the west of the island. "By the coast gods," he cursed. "It's a bunch of people, and some are women, and they're near the damn currents! They'll be swept away and killed!"
The commodore stomped a foot. "I know, you fool! Send the last working longboat, use every drop of juice! But get those women. We must have them alive!"
"Women," the bosun repeated, rubbing a sweaty hand on his thigh. "Aye, we'll get them, sir, and chill anybody who dares to try to stop us!"
WATCHING AS THE JUNKYARD island receded into the distance, the companions started to relax when the side of a huge oil tanker split apart as colossal doors spread wide. Filling the interior was a full-size dockyard. Oil lanterns hung in clusters, boxes and crates were stacked before warehouses and swarms of men worked with winches and cranes. Then from the shadows, two sleek speedboats darted into view, skipping across the waves at incredible velocities.
"Triple red!" Ryan shouted, keeping a grip on the helm and drawing his hand blaster. With a thumb, he flicked off the safety.
Prepared for possible trouble, the companions leveled their weapons and dropped into firing positions, tracking the incoming ships.
Dean dropped the clip in his Browning Hi-Power to check the load, then slammed it back in again, jacking the slide. "They might be friendly," he ventured hopefully.
"Not at that speed," J.B. admonished. "Friends don't come charging full speed at total strangers."
A bearded man on board one of the rushing vessels called out through a megaphone, but the words were distorted from the sheer distance.
"Something about heave to," Krysty said, brushing the tangles of hair away from her ears. "But I couldn't get the rest over the noise of those engines."
Ryan grunted at the pronouncement. He knew her hearing was a lot sharper than most people's.
"Fuck them," Jak spit, easing back the hammer on his .357 magnum Colt. "Lies, anyhow."
Withdrawing the Navy telescope from his pouch, J.B. extended the device to its full length. "Hard to see with all the bouncing," he complained, using a hand to cushion the telescope end rather than press the hard metal directly on his face. Only a fool did such a thing. It was a good way to lose the eye completely.
"Well?" Ryan demanded impatiently.
"They're heavily armed," J.B. announced, compacting the scope to the size of a soup can, "and carrying nets."
"Alive," Mildred growled, drawing her ZKR blaster. "We know what that means."
Suddenly, the two speedboats began to separate, arcing in different directions around the near stationary rafts. Taking a stance on the rolling deck, the physician braced her blaster at the wrist and drew in a slow breath. The foremost speedboat was still far away when she fired three times. The pilot slumped at the wheel, and the craft veered off sharply heading out to sea.
"Take the tiller!" Ryan ordered.
Holstering his piece, Jak switched with the big man, and Ryan unlimbered the Steyr. Working the bolt to chamber a round, he wrapped the strap about his forearm to help steady the aim and tracked the coming speedboat through the scope for a single heartbeat, then fired.
The cowling flipped off the outboard motor, and the engine caught fire. The boat slowed dramatically, and the men on board threw buckets of water on the burning machinery. Then J.B. opened up with the Uzi. Black dots peppered the hull, a windshield cracked, two men dropped and another tumbled overboard, his face gone.
Sporadic gunfire came from the junkyard island as the rafts continued floating away, the current that had carried them there building in strength. Then another vessel appeared from within the tanker, a huge powerful boat covered with predark weapons—machine guns and torpedo tubes.
"Damn, it's a PT boat from World War II!" Mildred shouted. "That can easily catch us and blow these rafts out of the water!"
"Unfortunately, they do not want us dead," Doc said grimly, cocking the hammer on his LeMat. "However, we do not reciprocate the sentiment." Doc fired twice, the booming revolver sounding as if it exploded rather than merely discharged, a lance of flame more than a foot long vomiting from its pitted muzzle. The first .44 miniball missed, but the second round impacted directly on the hull, making only a small dent.
"By the Three Kennedys!" he cursed, waving the weapon to disperse the smoke. "That floating tank is armored better than the Merrimac!"
Holding his blaster in both hands, Dean emptied a clip at the massive boat. If the boy hit the vessel it wasn't discernible. He reloaded and tried again.
"They're not even going to waste ammo shooting," J.B. drawled, slapping a fresh clip into the Uzi and triggering short controlled bursts. Instead of the men, he was aiming for the torpedo tubes, hoping for an explosion. "They'll just ram us, and bust these rafts into kindling!"
"Then rescue the female survivors," Mildred said, stuffing her jacket pockets with grens for close combat.
"Rape, you mean." Thumbing fresh rounds into her Smith & Wesson pistol, Krysty could see the men on board, laughing and jeering in unbridled lust. The sight made her blood run cold. After being almost raped twice in her lifetime, she would rather chill herself than let them have her as a prisoner, a helpless plaything to be abused for their sexual torture. Or even worse, a breeder to bear children as fast as possible until she died on a birthing bed whelping another slave for them to ravage.
Grabbing the AK-47, Krysty flipped the selector switch to full-auto and emptied the last clip at the rapidly approaching warship. The fusillade of rounds ricocheted off the hull with no effect.
Swaying to the motion of the building waves, Ryan swept the enemy boat with rounds from the Steyr, but the copper-jacketed 7.62 mm rounds of the longblaster were useless against the military armor of the hulking PT boat.
"Fireblast!" he stormed, dropping the spent weapon. "Small arms are useless against that behemoth. Mind the backwash. I'm going to use a LAW!"
Grabbing a fat tube from under the canvas mound, Ryan yanked the weapon to its full length. The sights popped up on top, and a large red button was exposed.
"Clear?" Ryan demanded, zeroing the aft port. The water was getting rough, waves chopping at the raft.
"Clear!" Krysty shouted.
Heading straight toward the
rafts, the PT boat loomed before them as Ryan pressed the launch button. A volcanic cone of exhaust stretched for several yards from the rear of the tube, and a rustling firebird launched from the tube and streaked toward the PT boat.
The rocket hit the vessel amidships, punching through the hull and detonating. Torn to pieces, the deck lifted off the gunwale as the boat was blown apart, men and machinery spewing outward in a geyser of destruction.
As the current quickly took the rafts away from the sinking wreckage, Ryan tossed the spent tube overboard and grabbed another. Warily, he waited for another speedboat to appear, but no more vessels ventured from the junkyard ville.
"I don't like this," Krysty said suspiciously. "They gave up too quickly."
Holstering his blaster, Dean suggested, "Mebbe they don't have any more boats."
"I saw a dozen more at the dock," J.B. replied, feeling uneasy. "A few had to be in working condition."
"There's something wrong here," Ryan agreed, collapsing the launcher. "Damned if I know what, though."
"We shot the shit out of them," Mildred stated forcibly. "They're just scared of folks with guns."
"Could be," Ryan said reluctantly. "Then again, they charged straight into our blasters and didn't shoot back when they wanted prisoners. That doesn't sound cowardly."
"No," she agreed. "No, it doesn't."
Unexpectedly, the rafts lurched in a rush of acceleration that nearly knocked the companions off their feet.
"Now, what was that?" Krysty demanded. "A riptide?"
"Hey," Jak said, throwing his weight against the tiller. There was no response. "Going south. Can't stop."
"Same here," Doc shouted, struggling with the helm. "The current is too strong."
Choppy waves broke over the front of the first raft, covering the companions with misty spray.
"Does that taste salty?" Krysty asked, touching her lips.
In sudden understanding, Mildred dipped a hand into the rough water and licked a finger. That was brine, sure enough.