“Now you know I’m not trying to put a damper on things, but these good people must understand that we’re not out of trouble yet; no, not by a long shot! Let’s face it, the best speed this convoy has ever achieved is something less than ten miles in any twenty-four hour period! Which I suppose is as much or more my fault as anyone else’s, me being the one who cares for these cursed engines! But now—what with fuel problems, earlier its conservation, and more recently its poor quality; and the lousy roads if and when there are roads, not just potholed rubble and cratered dirt; plus the fact that we’ve regularly had to detour to find safe harbour during daylight hours, while going with extreme caution through the badlands at night; and now the breakdowns, which can only get worse—well, I just don’t know what to say any more! But one thing for certain: while there’s nothing we can do about all this, still it makes that hundred miles seem one hell of a long way!”
“Ian, you’re quite right,” the leader had at once replied. “Which makes it all the more needful that we get underway with as little delay as possible. At least we know there’s no longer any requirement to be so frugal with the fuel and water. On the other hand, and where frugality is concerned, from now on we’ll need to be sparing with our remaining handful of domestic animals. Meaning that other than any wild game we may trap or shoot—assuming the fly-by-nights haven’t had them all—there can be no more roast suppers from the flesh of our caged creatures! No, for the kindred need our beasts’ genes to invigorate and reestablish the quality of their own animals: which is to say our animals, or humanity’s animals, as they will become in some far future time. And that’s not to mention our human genes—which are perhaps the future of humanity itself…!
“All of which to say, that having come this far we’re not about to let a handful of fouled-up, clapped-out vehicles stop us now—neither them nor anything else!”
And at last, as Big Jon swept the crowd with his eyes full of hope—such hope as the clan had never before seen lighting his face—finally he had nodded his satisfaction. And climbing down from his vehicle’s iron flank, he had commanded them:
“Now off you go and make ready. Another hour and we’ll be gone from here, and a long afternoon, evening, and night ahead…”
IX
All of which had taken place eleven days and ten nights ago.
Since when, as the convoy crept ever northward, the clan’s experiences had become increasingly eventful. Mercifully during that time there had been no more fly-by-night attacks or skirmishes; though at each day’s end, when Big Jon called a halt and the mechanical groaning of overloaded vehicles subsided into uneasy silence, and night’s long shadows began to shroud the land, the presence of vampires out there in what were once dead and crumbling radioactive wastelands—indeed “the badlands,” which now as often as not seemed magically transformed by improving local conditions into burgeoning grass and woodlands—was far more than merely suspected.
All too often the shrill, whistled alarms of the sentinels would be heard, their red flashes of warning light glimpsed out there on the perimeters; and the standby teams would ready themselves for action and prepare to ride out and engage the undead enemy. But unfailingly—and oddly—on each such occasion, as endless, breathless moments passed in deafening silence, eventually the flashing red beams would change to green, accompanied in short order by a long oh-so-welcome blast on Big Jon’s whistle as the leader signalled yet another all clear.
But so many alarms—three or four each night, and so often false or seemingly unjustified—that the people were actually becoming accustomed to them! While familiarity breeds contempt, however, they had never been contemptuous of the fly-by-nights; and thus the alarms continued to make for long, nervous nights.
The days, on the other hand, were glorious!
Unused to such balmy days and warm, benign sunlight—with the hinged lead shutters folded back and tucked away overhead—the people tended to forget the discomforts of cramped trundles and farm vehicles but perched wherever they could face outward, their legs swinging to the jolting, rocking rhythm of the lumbering transports. And for the very first time in their comparatively short lives, the pallor of their previously subterranean existence was beginning to be replaced by the pinks, then reds, then browns of skin tones coloured by the sun.
Ian Clement’s predictions, however, as they became reality, were causing problems; Big Jon’s optimism in respect of the unnecessary conservation of water had proved premature; even the hopes of head tech Andrew Fielding’s radio men, with regard to continued contact with the kindred, had been dashed to smithereens along with the radio, when the transport carrying most of the technical equipment had turned over in a ditch.
Big Jon considered this last as bad a problem as any other, if not a disaster: that the voices on the other end of the airwaves—as static-plagued as the reception often was—had been shut off forever in the irreparable tangle of wires, fuses, and shattered glass.
But in fact the other problems were just as bad, if not far worse, especially the trouble with the water. During the second night following the convoy’s departure from the wooded site in the lee of the cliffs—the first night of so-called rest, despite frequent disturbances by the real or suspected presence of nearby fly-by-nights—the old rust-scabbed bowser had sprung a serious leak. With its source directly under the huge tank, the trickle of precious water had not been noticed until first light when an area of soaked earth had revealed the full extent of the loss: at least two thirds of the clan’s reserves.
While chief mech Clement had stopped up the leak in double-quick time, the very next day there was nothing he could do for a seized-up trundle engine, or on the day following the wrecked tech transport’s broken axles. And all the time the increasingly cramped conditions in the rest of the convoy’s vehicles were making difficult times all the more problematic.
As for Garth Slattery, the outrider teams (now more commonly called the “night-watch squads”), and the unusual inactivity of the fly-by-nights:
Since the slow, lumbering column now proceeded only in daylight, Garth and his squad—along with the other squads—were on duty every night forming an oval perimeter around the entire length or cluster of the stationary convoy; which meant that the watch-men could at least attempt to sleep for seven or eight hours in the noisy, jarring trundles each day, and have the evenings to themselves when Big Jon called a halt and the column paused to rest and take stock. And so Garth was at last able to spend at least some time with his new wife, but rarely quality time and never a lot.
Layla knew that something was bothering him. His nightmares were worse than ever, when after only a few hours rest he would begin muttering to himself—then start awake with an inarticulate cry, clinging to her and shaking feverishly. Sometimes he would mumble her name; other times the name of someone else…someone Layla remembered only too well!
At first she believed she understood this well enough, and despite the disruption it caused accepted it as a natural consequence of the mutual animosity that had existed between Garth and that loathsome other. At least Layla accepted it as such—but not Garth, not entirely. He wouldn’t, however, speak of his concerns in any detail; to do so would only have worried Layla more yet, most likely needlessly. Thus he kept his own counsel—his doubts and indeed his fears—to himself. For not unlike Layla, albeit to a lesser degree, Garth was wont to reason with himself, trying to rationalize and perhaps minimalize his “problem.” But that was only in broad daylight, with the sun warming his face. Never at night, out there on the perimeter.