by James Axler
“ARE WE READY TO HEAD OFF?” Ryan asked as he shouldered the backpack containing supplies plundered from the redoubt, one of several such bags they had filled from the well-stocked base.
He was greeted with assent from the companions, who hoisted their own loaded backpacks and shouldered their newly cleaned and refilled weapons.
“Let’s hope that the reason we’ve found this undisturbed isn’t because the entrance is under a ton of rocks,” Doc commented dryly.
“You don’t even want to go down that road, my friend,” Mildred said before adding, “Not that you could, if it was under a ton of rock.”
Her good humor reflected how the companions felt. After two days’ rest in perfect peace, and the added bonus of a shower and a change of clothing, they felt more than ready to face what may lay ahead.
“Okay, let’s get going,” Ryan stated.
They made their way in line through the echoing and empty corridors of the lower level to the elevator. Having already tested the car during their brief stay, they knew it could carry them to the top level. They entered the elevator and traveled up in silence. Leaving the car as it came to rest, they walked briskly along the winding corridor until they arrived at the final set of sec doors, which was all that separated them from the outside world and whatever it may hold.
Ryan, at the head of the line, paused before initiating the procedure that would open the door. As did the rest of the companions, he scanned the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, searching for any sign of stress that may have resulted from earth movement, indicating that the door could be in any way impeded.
It was Mildred who voiced the general opinion. “Doesn’t look like there’s any problem so far—this tunnel looks as smooth as the day it was built,” she said softly.
The sec door began to rise, a cool breeze wafting in through the widening gap. As the viewing space increased with the ascent of the door, they could see that the redoubt was positioned at the summit of a small hill. A road twisted its way down the incline of the slope until it reached the edge of a beach, then veered off to the left behind the circumference of the hill. The beach was short, leading into a stretch of water that was about two miles long before hitting an island that looked to be only a few square miles in size. Beyond the island, the sea stretched toward the horizon.
“They didn’t exactly try to hide this one, did they?” Doc commented.
“I don’t know,” J.B. mused. “Facing away from the mainland, would anyone have come around this side of the hill? There’s only that island and not a lot else.”
“Yeah, I can figure that before skydark, but what about after? How come no one coming down the peninsula has searched this out, especially as it’s so open?” Mildred asked.
Krysty shrugged. “Could be—if there are no villes near—that no one wants to come down the peninsula, even if they’re in search of shelter. After all,” she added, looking out to the sea on either side of the hill, with only the distant coastline to break the view, “it’s not as if this is even much of a peninsula.”
“Best to wait to see what it’s like when we get around the other side,” Ryan said. “Keep on triple-red, and string out. We’ll follow the road.” He looked around. “There isn’t much cover for us or for anyone wanting to attack us, so I guess we should be okay as long as we keep alert.”
The one-eyed man signaled them to move with a wave of the Steyr rifle that he held in his right hand, and began to walk down the road that curved along the slope of the hill. Following him down, it was easy for the rest of them to see that he was accurate in his assessment of the territory. The hill was a verdant green, with only small rocks and pebbles poking through the covering of topsoil. There was little in the way of vegetation to provide any sort of cover on the hillside, and Krysty’s hair flowed free down her back, indicating that there was little in the way of hidden danger to alert her mutie sense.
The road had a rough shale-and-gravel surface that crunched under their marching feet, the loose rock shooting across onto the grass and down the slope of the hill toward the beach.
As they descended, Mildred looked at the island that lay only a couple of miles out across the narrow channel. It was fairly flat and seemed to be well covered by vegetation and trees. The environment on the small piece of land seemed to be better equipped for supporting life than the barren hillside of the peninsula.
They reached the bottom of the hill and followed the road, most of them glancing out at the channel. It seemed calm as the waves lapped gently along the shallow beach, but as their glances strayed farther out, they could see patches of white water that pointed to a crosscurrent that could be deadly to the unsuspecting. It was likely the island was isolated and uninhabited because of it. Despite the proximity to land, negotiating the narrow channel would be a dangerous task.
Looking up, the entrance to the redoubt could be quite plainly seen and once more it crossed Mildred’s mind to wonder why the predark base had been left so completely undisturbed over the past century.
Rounding the hill, the companions found that they were immediately ascending once more, the land on the reverse of the hill narrowing to a band of rock that formed a sharp slope that led upward to form a bridge between the hill and the mainland. The tides around the coast had to have eaten away at the rocks over centuries, chipping away the land until it formed little more that a narrow causeway. The topsoil that covered the hill became more sparse, slabs of rock showing through and coloring the landscape a slate gray.
“I’ve got a feeling I know why the redoubt has been left alone,” Mildred said as they climbed, the incline becoming steeper with each footfall.
It was a rhetorical statement. They could all quite clearly see what had happened. The centuries of tide had worn the rock to a narrow bridge, the shift in the landscape fashioned by the post-nukecaust nuclear winter rendering a causeway at its narrowest point. Jagged shards of rock fell abruptly away to the razor-sharp granite below, which was consistently being lashed by the current as the tides forced water into the narrow channel. Across the divide, which seemed to be about ten yards in length, the causeway reappeared with the same jagged disruption in the pattern of the dark rock face. It was as though the tide and the earth movement beneath had caused a great chunk of the natural bridge to be ripped wholesale from the causeway and just tossed away, isolating the hill completely from the mainland. Beyond the divide, the causeway widened to join the rest of the coastline, where the greenery was lush and the land looked fertile and verdant.
“Fireblast,” Ryan whispered softly. He knew that if there was some way to bridge the divide, they would reach a landscape that offered the promise of good living and perhaps a friendly ville. To their back lay only an island and the barren hill, with the possibility of a quick mat-trans jump to another place—always assuming their constitutions could take another jump so quickly. Knowing how Doc and Jak were always affected, and from the way in which Dean had suffered with this particular jump, it didn’t seem a viable option this soon.
Jak joined the one-eyed man at the head of the divide and looked down onto the razor-sharp rocks. The albino looked across toward the far side of the gap, screwing up his red eyes to get a better view in the wind that whipped through the hole left by the missing rock.
“If bit shorter, would say try climb down, mebbe get across, then make rope across.”
Ryan nodded briefly. “String some across, then hand-over-hand. Half, mebbe three-quarters, of the distance and we could all make it. But this is a bit much for Doc, mebbe for Mildred and Dean, as well. Anyway, who could get down this side, across and then up the other?”
Jak shrugged. “Mebbe me, if water not run strong down there.”
Ryan cast his eye down to the cross-tide as it crashed on the razored rocks. He grimaced. “Yeah, try to get across those rocks with no tide and you could probably just about make it. But if one of those waves catches you, you’re fucked.”
Jak nodded once. “Cut
you up like the sharpest knife.”
“Nothing to do except go back, then,” Ryan stated.
The other companions moved to the edge of the rock for a better view of the channel. Looking along the coastline that lay behind the hill and peninsula, they could see that the drop from the top of the land to the sea below was sheer for as far as the eye could see. Small strips of sand here and there ended in a sheet of rock that would impede any progress, even assuming they had a craft on which to sail around the hill and the causeway. The rock bridge, so violently severed, was their only practical hope of reaching the mainland.
“I fear this may turn out to be something of an anticlimax,” Doc said woefully.
“Mebbe not,” J.B. told them. “We’ve got two choices—go back to the redoubt and get the hell out…”
“Or?” Dean asked.
“Or we try to get to that island, see what it’s like there. Mebbe there’s some life of some kind, or mebbe just a place we could rest up for some time.”
“Life?” Mildred questioned. “John, how the hell could anyone live on there, cut off from anywhere else?”
The Armorer gave her a rare grin. “I only said mebbe, Millie,” he countered.
They turned and walked back down the incline of the road to the base of the hill.
“What do you think, Dad?” Dean asked. “Reckon we could get out to the island?”
“Not keen on making another jump so soon?” Ryan queried.
Dean tried to keep the darkness out of his voice, but couldn’t stop it crossing his brow as he spoke. “I can’t say as I’d be too happy about having to do that,” he said simply.
“That is something on which I think many, if not all, of us would agree,” Doc muttered.
“Rather chance water than go back to mat-trans so soon,” Jak added.
“I figured you’d mebbe all feel that way,” the one-eyed man said as they hit the road base and rounded the circumference of the hill. They came to the thin strip of beach that petered out into nothing at the bend of the land.
Ryan looked toward the island, judging not so much the distance or the terrain as the state of the water that lay between. For about half a mile or so the water was quite calm. It also seemed to be calm as it neared the shore of the island. However, there was about a mile of rough sea between these two points, the white water pointing to a boiling rage of current beneath the almost-calm surface.
“Do you think we can make it across that, especially with no raft of any kind—and nothing that I can see around here to build one?” J.B. asked.
Ryan shook his head. “It’s a hard call,” he mused. “I figure we’re all strong enough to make the distance. The only problem is just how much of a bastard that current in the middle is going to be.” He continued, pointing to the white water that speckled the surface, “And how deep is this channel? Are there rocks under the current like the ones we’ve just seen, waiting to rip us to shreds if we get pushed onto them?”
“That’s an awful lot of maybes,” Mildred mused before a grin creased her features. “I’ll tell you something, though. We should go back to the redoubt and have a look around. There may just be something we can use in there.”
“I doubt that,” Ryan said with a resigned tone. “I can’t remember ever seeing anything like a raft or boat in any redoubt we’ve ever been in.”
“Yeah, but when was the last time we landed up in a redoubt so close to the ocean?” Mildred countered.
Ryan paused and thought about that. “Not any time I can recall,” he said finally.
“Exactly,” Mildred said. “The way I see it, there’s a chance that whoever used that redoubt before skydark might have had something, even if only for their off-duty hours.”
Ryan’s face broke into a grin. “Now that’s something that I hadn’t thought of.”
The group turned and made its way back up the shale-and-gravel road that led to the sec door. They moved freely and quickly, knowing that they were safe from attack, and with a sense of purpose engendered by the search for a craft of some kind to take them across the channel to the island.
As they reached the crest of the hill and the small recess where the sec door lay, Mildred paused to look over her shoulder and across to the island. For just a second she felt a cold shiver run up and down her spine, rippling the muscles and causing a pool of cold sweat to gather in the small of her back. She frowned, wondering why she should have such a portent.
“That’s usually Krysty’s department,” she muttered.
“Did you say something, Mildred?” the red-haired woman asked, moving back to where Mildred was staring across the channel.
“Oh, nothing…” Mildred replied, turning from the sea to walk through the now-open sec door and into the redoubt tunnel with Krysty. They walked in silence, Krysty puzzled as to what Mildred had really meant, and Mildred pondering why she had suddenly felt as if something of significance was about to happen.
By the time Krysty and Mildred had caught up with the rest of the companions, they were already in the elevator.
“Hurry up,” Dean said urgently. “We need to scour the dorms and the storage areas.”
“Why hurry?” Krysty questioned. “The island’s not exactly going anywhere, is it?”
Dean shrugged. “I know, but I just don’t like being stuck on a lump of rock in the middle of nowhere.”
“Fair enough. I guess I know what you mean.”
The elevator doors closed and they descended to the lower level of the redoubt, where the living quarters of the long-since-deceased-and-deserted inhabitants had been situated. It was here they were to begin their search.
It was thorough and systematic. Grouping into pairs—Ryan and Krysty, J.B. and Mildred, Dean and Doc, with Jak operating on his own—they searched the storage and dorm areas looking for a boat or for something that they might be able to use to construct a raft.
It was Jak who hit paydirt. Joining him in response to his shout, the companions found the albino teen in a storage room that contained a lot of sports equipment, as well as three inflatable rafts, two canoes and some paddles. It was obvious from their design that they weren’t of military origin, and had more than likely been used by long-gone soldiers for recreational trips onto the sea during off-duty hours.
“What you reckon?” the albino asked, smiling as he dragged the two canoes from under a mass of equipment and separated the rafts from a tennis net and two basketball nets.
“I reckon those are a no-go,” Dean said, pointing to the canoes. “You can only get two of us in each, and there’s no way we could keep any of the supplies balanced.”
Ryan agreed. “Those, on the other hand,” he added, indicating the rafts, “could probably take three or four apiece when they’re inflated, as well as being able to ballast the supplies.”
“Only thing we have to do is find something to inflate them with,” J.B. commented.
Mildred shrugged. “If they were used here, then the odds are there are some gas canisters somewhere. Guess we just need to look.”
Jak rooted around, and located canisters of gas that had been used to inflate the rafts in predark days.
“Hope there’s enough in there to still do it,” he commented as he dragged the canisters from beneath some boxes.
“Only one way to find out,” Ryan said. “Let’s get these bastard things down to the channel and try to inflate them.”
Chapter Two
They carried the rafts and canisters to the strip of beach, not knowing if the containers held enough gas to inflate the rafts. What they would do if the inflatable craft remained uninflated was a problem. They had the two canoes, which they had left in the redoubt, and Dean wondered if it would be possible for them to travel in relays across to the island. As the canoes took two people, two would set off, then one would return to pick up another person. With two canoes and only seven companions, it would take a couple of journeys.
Ryan, however, was unsure about the relays.
However it was organized, one person on each canoe would have to make the trip twice. Looking out at the choppy sea where the white-water currents ran, with who knew what lying beneath the surface, he thought it would be too much to ask of any of them—even himself or J.B.—to make the trip for a second time in rapid succession.
“Then what do we do if these rafts stay this flat?” Mildred asked, taking the yellow plastic of a raft in one hand and holding it, noting how fragile the material was for the task it was about to face.
“We think of something else,” Ryan replied. “But it looks good so far.”
J.B. linked the canisters to the valves on the sides of each raft and released the tap that allowed the pressurized gas to pass into the raft.
The yellow plastic gradually began to unfold and to spread out across the sand as the hollows within ingested the light gas. The rafts began to increase in size and strength, the tubular sides becoming harder to the touch.
Ryan and J.B. stood back to let the craft inflate. Jak, Krysty and Doc joined them.
“It would seem that there may well be enough of the mixture within to give us some hope,” Doc commented.
“Looks like,” Krysty added. “It’d be worse to see the rafts half inflated and then the gas run out. More of a disappointment.”
“An understatement if ever there was one,” Doc murmured wryly.