Marty looked down at his sneakers. “Me?”
“No, the other Miller standing over there.”
Emory chuckled. “That’s Marty. He’s only just enlisted, actually. The real Miller was dishonorably discharged.”
“Explains the blood,” Sullivan said, checking briefly out the window again. “Closest most of those Air Force jerks down there ever got to combat before this was dragging a can of gasoline over to an airplane.”
“They’re all Air Force?”
“Yeah,” Sullivan said. “From Tinker AFB. They’ve been probing Mesa all week. Now they’re finally attacking some biker gang a few blocks over in that motel.”
“We just came from there,” Emory said. “You got any food to spare?”
“Got a case of MREs in the closet. I swiped it from the Air Force last night.”
Emory showed Marty how to use the chemical heater contained in the MRE pack to warm his food, using a little bit of water from the back of the commode. The heater was a plastic bag containing a simple combination of powdered, food-grade iron, magnesium, and salt. The added water started a chemical reaction that gave off enough heat to warm the ration to more than a hundred degrees.
“This doesn’t taste too bad,” Marty said.
“I don’t know what you’ve been eating these past few months,” she said, “but this shit’s fucking fantastic. That bastard made me eat a can of Alpo last night.”
“What bastard?” Sullivan asked.
“The Mongols had her,” Marty said.
“Who the fuck are they?”
“Those bikers you were talking about.”
“You were with those animals? They’ve been kidnapping people all over town. They’re eating them!”
“That’s a fact,” Emory said. “So what’s your plan?”
Sullivan shrugged. “Keep stealing from the Air Force as long as I can. It’s all about the food now.”
Emory looked at Marty. “What do you want to do?”
He shrugged dolefully. “I hadn’t really thought past getting you to safety.”
“Well, I’m safe now,” she said with a grin. “So what’s Marty want for himself?”
“Nothing. I’ll help you two steal from the Air Force. If anything ever happens, I can stay behind and cover your retreat.”
“No, Marty. You’re not a sacrificial lamb. You’re an intelligent guy. You have to have an idea or two rolling around in your head.”
“Well, I would like to see the impact crater before I die.”
“See what?” Sullivan blurted. “Are you nuts?”
“He’s an astronomer,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“See the fucking impact crater,” Sullivan said. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard yet.”
“It’s a hell of a lot less crazy than people eating people,” Marty said. “Which is all that you’ve got to look forward to—whether it’s eating or being eaten. And that crater’s going to make the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the sidewalk.”
Sullivan looked at Emory. “Where did you find this dude?”
“Look, I’m just talking here,” Marty went on. “But there isn’t too much of a future in stealing from the Air Force. Why not see the greatest sight of all time?”
“All right, suppose we find a truck,” Sullivan said. “Something that can handle rough terrain. And suppose we swipe enough food from the Air Force to get us there. What are we gonna do after that? Sit down and starve?”
Marty shook his head, saying, “Everybody left alive is headed south. They think it’s going to be warmer down there, but it won’t be enough to make a difference. You were exactly right. It’s all about the food now… and the food is north.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, I’m not,” Marty insisted. “Everyone’s dead up there. Killed by the blast wave or burned alive. But the canned food—at least a percentage of it—is still edible. Scorched and without labels, but edible, buried in the rubble, hidden in basements. You want food? Head north.”
“Bullshit,” Sullivan said. “You just want to see the crater.”
“No,” Emory said, “he’s serious.”
“And I’ve already got our transportation problem solved,” Marty added. “It’s even on the way.”
Thirty-Three
Early the next morning, Vasquez glanced up from his book, movement on one of the monitors having caught his eye. “Puta madre! Where did that ugly bastard come from?”
Danzig looked up from his Game and Wildlife magazine to see a burly looking man with a thick black beard and grubby parka wandering around in the kitchen above. He had a shotgun slung over his shoulder and he was rifling through the cupboards, tossing things about. This was the first sign of life they had seen aboveground since the impact three months earlier. “Better get Jack in here.”
Vasquez pressed the button for the P.A.: “Forrest to Launch Control. Forrest to the L.C.”
Danzig was busy checking the different camera feeds around the upper compound to see if there was anyone else wandering around up there. “Look at this shit.”
A different man in a camouflaged coat stood on the porch, holding a shotgun on two women and a third man. All three of the captives were equally disheveled and filthy, their hands tied behind their backs.
Forrest entered Launch Control tailed by Ulrich and Kane. Many of the others, Veronica and Michael among them, gathered outside the door waiting to learn what had put the urgency into Oscar Vasquez’s voice. In addition to being the first sign of life from above, it was also the first excitement there had been since the impact.
Forrest watched the burly man kicking around the kitchen without comment, waiting to see what was going to happen with the prisoners on the porch. The man in the kitchen checked the stove to find that the gas burners still worked and moved quickly out of the room.
Ulrich glanced at Forrest. “That was an oversight. I’ll go and remedy that right now.” He slipped out the opposite door and went to shut off the gas supply to the house.
“Stay with Black Beard,” Forrest said to Vasquez.
Vasquez changed feeds to show that Black Beard was now standing on the porch talking to the man in camouflage. The man in camouflage beckoned to their male captive, apparently ordering him into the house. The captive stepped back, shaking his head, and Black Beard stepped after him. The captive then dove over the porch railing and landed on his back, rolling to his feet as Black Beard ran down the stairs into the yard and tackled him, taking some sort of truncheon from beneath his parka and beating him with it until he stopped fighting. Then he hauled him to his feet by the hair, kicking him in the butt to get him moving toward the stairs.
Forrest noticed the man on the porch covertly snatching the pack of cigarettes he’d forgotten on the windowsill months earlier, jamming them into his pocket before Black Beard came back up the stairs. “Sumbitch took my smokes,” he muttered, stepping into the hall to brief the others on what was happening. “Okay, ladies, we’ve got a couple of scavengers upstairs, but they’re no threat to this installation. They haven’t found the blast door, and even if they do, there’s no possible way for them to open it.”
“What are they doing?” Veronica asked.
“Searching the house for food.”
“Can we see?”
Forrest looked at her, wishing she wouldn’t put him on the spot. “They’re pretty ragged and they’ve got a few prisoners. It might be a little disturbing. We’re taping everything and everybody will be able to view it later if they want to.”