“What is it?” Hickok asked, glancing at the window, which was still closed.
Bertha was sitting up, the blanket clutched in front of her body, covering her to the chin. She was staring, wide-eyed, at an opening at the base of the room’s south wall, a former vent, the cover since removed by a previous tenant.
“Kill it!” she beseeched them, her voice shrill. “Kill the damn thing!”
Perched on its rear legs in the vent opening stood a large rat, its whiskers twitching, defiantly gazing at them.
“It’s just a rat,” Hickok said, amazed. He stared down at Bertha.
“You’re afraid of one measly old rat?”
“Kill it!” She frantically clutched his left leg. “For God’s sake, kill it before it can bring the rest back here!”
“Whatever you say.” Hickok began to bring the Henry up, but stopped when Blade grabbed his arm.
“Not in here,” Blade nodded at the rifle. “Think of our ears.” He was holding his Commando in his left hand, his right slowly sneaking around his back, to the Solingen throwing knifes.
“Oh, get it, please!” Bertha whispered.
The rat dropped to all fours and began to turn, to leave.
Blade crouched, sweeping his right hand forward, gripping the Solingen by the tip of the blade. He threw overhand, the knife turning end over end as it crossed the six feet between them and imbedded itself to the hilt in the rat’s fat, squat body.
The rat reared back, screeching and chittering, clawing at the knife.
The furry body was racked with intense spasms. It squealed one final time, tottered on the edge of the vent, and toppled over, disappearing down the shaft.
“My knife!” Blade lunged for the opening, too late. His fingers clutched empty air. “Damn!” He knelt and peered down the vent. “Can’t see a thing! I’ll never get that knife back.”
Bertha sank to the mattress, trembling.
Hickok dropped to his knees and cradled her in his arms. “Come on, Black Beauty. It’s dead and gone. You can relax.”
Bertha struggled to sit up, glaring at each of them. “Don’t you fools understand?”
“Understand what?” Hickok answered her.
“About rats.”
“What’s the big deal over one rat? We see them from time to time around our Home, but they’re no problem.”
“This ain’t your Home, White Meat,” she reminded him. “In the cities it’s different. I didn’t think they would be in a small town like this, but I guess I was wrong. You should see them in the Twins!” She shuddered.
“Millions and millions of them. Mostly they keep to themselves in the sewers and underground tunnels, but they come up from time to time, roaming the streets, hunting.”
Blade recalled an earlier statement she had made. “Do the rats eat the Wacks you were telling us about? You said the Wacks use the underground too.”
Bertha was staring at the vent. “They eat each other, far as I know,” she replied absently. “The Wacks got fire, though, and the rats don’t like fire none. They’re terrible, but they can’t hold a candle to the roaches.”
“The roaches?” It was Joshua’s turn to ask, perplexed.
“The cockroaches,” Bertha responded. “More cockroaches than a person could count.”
“Don’t tell me the bugs are dangerous?” Hickok cracked.
Bertha gazed at Hickok. “I pity you, White Meat. You got so much to learn. You can stomp a Wack easy enough, if they don’t nail you first. Even the rats can be stabbed or shot or clubbed for as long as you got your strength. But the cockroaches! How you gonna fight a horde of bugs only six inches long and two inches wide?”
“How big?” Blade interjected, doubting he’d heard her correctly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Geronimo leave the room.
Bertha raised her hands and held them the proper distance apart. “This long.”
Hickok whistled. “How the blazes do you stand living in the Twin Cities?”
“I can’t stand it,” she answered, “which is why I want out. I don’t never want to go back there. No way.”
“Whatever you decide,” Blade told her. “Just keep in mind we could really use your help. We need a guide, someone who knows their way around the Twin Cities. Someone who could help us find the things we’re looking for.”
Bertha shook her head. “No way, man. I’d have to be stone cold crazy to go back there.”
“Won’t Z be expecting you back?” Hickok asked her.
“Hey, White Meat,” she said, shrugging, “it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Z won’t miss me. If I hadn’t got myself caught by the Watchers, maybe I would have gone back and reported it. But I did get nabbed, and I had a lot of time to think while they was beating me and burning me and poking me, and I made a decision. Bertha, I told myself, if, by some miracle, you get out of this mess, then there ain’t no way, no how, you’re going back to the Twins. I tell you, I’d be crazy to go back there!”
Blade could see the subject distressed her. “Whatever you say,” he stated. “You get your rest. We’ve decided to stay with you until you can take care of yourself. Then we’ll be leaving for the Twin Cities.”
“Can’t you leave it alone?” she pleaded. “Can’t you just go back to this Home you’re from and forget the Twins?”
Blade shook his head. “No. A lot of people, people we love dearly, are relying on us. We must get to the Twins.”
“White Meat told me you got a woman waiting for you,” Bertha said, trying another tack. “Don’t you want to see her again?”
“Of course I do,” Blade replied, an edge to his voice.
“Well, you won’t if you go on the way you are,” Bertha ventured. “None of you will come back from the Twins.”
“We’ll take that chance.” Blade spun and left the room. He hurried downstairs, his anger building. How dare she remind him of Jenny! He walked outside.
Geronimo was holding his Browning, leaning against the front of the SEAL. He noticed Blade’s expression.
“You okay?” Geronimo solicitously inquired.
“Fine,” Blade replied, too quickly, the word a growl in his deep chest.
Geronimo turned away, knowing his friend all too well. Blade was known for a long fuse, but when he blew, watch out! His temper was renowned in the Family. Geronimo grinned, remembering the time Blade took on an entire pack of wild dogs with just his Bowies in his hands, his face flushed with pure rage, determined to hack the canines to pieces! A firm hand fell on his left shoulder, and he turned.
“Sorry,” Blade said simply.
“No problem.”
Blade smiled and strolled off. He headed west, skirting the park, thinking of Jenny. Was she up already? Was she still pining for him?
Would she cry herself to sleep at night until he returned? Dear Spirit, how he missed her! He wanted to get this damn trip over with as fast as humanly possible and return to the Home!
The bright sun on his face brought him up short. He gazed upward, watching several white clouds drifting eastward. The sky was tinged with a shade of gray today, as it sometimes was. Periodically, the entire sky would turn a somber shade of cement gray, the air filled with tiny particles of ash and dust.
Blade’s mind drifted, recollecting the Family records concerning the aftermath of the Third World War. Carpenter had been delightfully surprised the fallout at the Home was minimal. He had expected to see higher concentrations, particularly if the missile silos in North Dakota were hit with ground blasts of ten megatons or more. Fortunately for the fate of the Home, at the time of the Soviet attack on the North Dakota missile fields, the prevailing winds at the forty-thousand-foot altitude, the air currents responsible for the primary distribution of the fallout, had been bearing in a southeasterly direction, not toward the east. So the Family had escaped the brunt of the fallout. It could not, however, avoid other inevitable consequences of a nuclear war.