I wiped the grit out of my eyes, but more blew across as I heard vehicles pull up on the far side of the fence. Sullivan was mustering an army. They came in such numbers, I could even smell aftershave on the Guard.
With a deep breath I shouted, “Here’s the deal, Crowther. We leave you alone in return for the dynamite.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Valdiva. You can sit out there in the ditch until Thanksgiving for all we care.”
“Crowther, there are ten of us out here. We’re armed with military sniper rifles. If you don’t give us the dynamite we will sit out here until Thanksgiving. And whenever any of you or your neighbors walk out into the open we’re going to blow their heads clean off their shoulders. We’ll keep doing that until you give us the stuff. OK?”
“You’re bluffing, Valdiva.”
“Try me.”
Beside me, Ben, edged away from a corpse with a hole in its head you could have waggled your fist in. He kept swallowing, his eyes watering. I rubbed my stomach as it gave a queasy squirm.
I’d expected some response from Crowther, but it became quiet. I guess the guys were in conference all of a sudden. Time to make my contribution to the debate. Carefully I eased my head up above the ditch. More dust carried downwind, creating a golden mist. With luck the guardsmen who were keeping watch might not see me through that swirling filth.
My stomach muscles bucked. Christ, that smell of rot had gotten itself deep down into the pit of my belly. I held out my hand. “Ben, pass the rifle.”
Wiping the back of his mouth, he handed it to me. I chambered a round. Raised it to my shoulder. Looked through the telescopic sight. Sullivan had grown soft and careless. Magnification bloated the heads like beach balls. Sitting in the center of the crosshairs I saw Mike Richmond looking up over the top of a car. There were others I recognized, too. Finch, the old cop whose daughter Lynne had been murdered by the townsfolk. There was Mel, who grew the marijuana, toting an Uzi. Every so often she lifted her head above the back of a truck, an easy target. A tempting target as well, bearing in mind that she’d snitched on me that I was hiding a stranger in my cabin. But life’s short anyway. I allowed the crosshairs of the telescopic sight to slide over one target after another. I counted six heads I could get a clear shot at. And even though I’d lied about the number of marksmen we had I knew we could leave a couple of our people here who’d turn this side of town into sniper’s alley. Lifting the rifle a little, I could even get a clear shot of the main street. I could pick off townsfolk as they went to the mall or the courthouse.
I lowered the rifle. The veil of dust was thinning. Gold specks settled on my bare arms. Make this quick, Valdiva, I told myself. They’re going to see you any moment now.
Once more I traced the line of vehicles. When I reached a truck I stopped. Although I couldn’t see him I saw the bullhorn protruding from behind the front fender. Crowther had shielded himself. Even so, the bullhorn poked out like a bird’s tail from behind a bush. I panned the rifle until the crosshairs sat squarely on the bullhorn; then I gently squeezed the trigger.
The sound of the bullet striking the bullhorn was amplified by the thing’s mike into a shriek of feedback. The bullhorn flew out of Crowther’s hand to the ground.
This time a hail of lead came back in our direction, but we were well hidden by the time it did. Once the dirt stopped erupting from the lip of the ditch there was silence again.
When Crowther spoke next it was without the aid of the bullhorn. But to be honest I didn’t recognize the voice. Fear squeezed it into a high squeal.
“Valdiva! OK! You’ve got what you want! But you’ve got to promise that you won’t come back here.” The voice rose even higher. “Do you hear that, Valdiva?”
I smiled at Ben. I could picture Crowther all sweaty and scared and still rubbing his tingling fingers from when the rifle bullet had smashed the bullhorn from his hand.
“Valdiva! Did you hear me!”
“Yes, I heard. Remember, I want three hundred pounds of dynamite. Detonators. Fuse wire.”
“Valdiva, you asked for two hundred.”
“The price just went up.”
“OK, you bastard, you’ve got it.”
“Leave it outside the gate. Two people in an army Jeep will collect it. Don’t harm them… otherwise I’ll sit out here and pick you all off one by one. Right?”
“OK! OK! Give us half an hour.”
Ben smiled and held out his hand. “You’re the miracle man.”
Smiling, I slapped his palm. “It was easier than I thought.”
“That’s because you scared them good and hard, old buddy.”
My smile turned grim. “I had help from other quarters.”
“Oh?”
I rubbed my stomach as it spasmed. “Ben, they’re scared because they’re in the early stages of infection.”
His eyes went wide.
“That’s right, old buddy; Sullivan’s lousy with Jumpy. They just don’t know it yet.”
With Ben staring at me like I’d just punched him, I began to make my way back along the ditch to where Michaela waited with the others.
Forty-seven
“How long do you give them?” Michaela asked from the passenger seat as we drove away from Sullivan.
“A few days before the symptoms become obvious.” I shifted the gearshift. “Then they’ll cull the ones they know are infected. Only the ones doing the killing will be infected themselves.”
She pushed her hair back from her eyes. “So why aren’t we infected?”
I shrugged. “Natural immunity.”
“I wish you could be so sure.”
“You’ve been exposed to the bug enough, and you haven’t been infected yet. Those people back in Sullivan managed by sheer chance to avoid contamination for so long because they were isolated from the rest of the world.”
“Do you think I introduced the bug to them?” she asked. “I may not be infected, but I might be a carrier.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. In fact, I’m certain they infected themselves.”
“How?”
“One thing the people of Sullivan ate plenty of were fresh fish. For months fish had been feeding on bodies that had been washed into the lake.” I looked at her. “It adds up, doesn’t it?”
“Agreed. But not everyone will be infected with Jumpy.”
“No, a few will survive. They’ll wander from place to place, scavenging food. But the town’s as good as dead now.”
“Greg?”
“Michaela?” I smiled.
“Slow down, boyfriend. Remember what we’ve got in the back.”
I glanced at the cases of dynamite stacked in the back of the Jeep. I eased off the gas. On this rutted road the boxes were hopping about in a way that was too lively for us to be comfortable with.
“So,” she said, “how do you use dynamite?”
“Search me, I haven’t a clue.” I shot her a smile. “We’ll figure out how one way or another.”
Her face broke into a slow grin. “Yeah, we’re Vikings now. We can do anything, right?”
“Right.”
We drove back the way we came, along roads that cut deep gullies through the forests. In the distance we caught glimpses of rivers and lakes. The afternoon sun had been buried behind a big, dark funeral mound of cloud. A flock of white birds glided along the valley to our right, over shattered houses and villages that lay bitched and broken with their living hearts torn out. Yeah, Valdiva. We’re Vikings now. Warriors of the wasteland. Lords of Chaos. We’d inherited a ruined planet.
Ahead of us by a few yards rode Tony, Ben and Zak, in a line of three, the bikes eating up mile after mile of road. I guessed they were taken by surprise by how easily we’d gotten hold of the dynamite in the end. Within thirty minutes of me shooting the bullhorn from Crowther’s hand the townspeople piled the cases of explosives outside the gate. Tony and Ben rode up in the Jeep and loaded it; then we were away in a swirl of dust with the Jumpy-raddled people of Sullivan watching us go. Only when I was five miles from the place did the muscle spasms ease in my stomach.