Deathlands 04 - Crater Lake by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-02-10T16:43:44+00:00

ONCE THEY WERE ALL SAFELY in the cluttered, cramped cab of the rig, they discussed what they should do.

"There's a big fucking ridge ahead," Finnegan said. "Saw it 'fore this fucking snow came down. It's only 'bout five, six miles ahead. Sky seemed clearer north."

"This wag won't run much longer," J.B. commented, taking off his glasses and polishing them clean of the smears of snow. "I doubt we'd make it back to the ville."

Ryan nodded his agreement. "Could be best to go on, I guess."

Jak stared moodily out of one of the high side windows and picked his nose. "The trans message was this way? Came for that. Go on."

Krysty shook her head. "If we stop now, then we should make the gateway. Try somewhere else. Farther we go on, the farther we've got to come back. Mebbe on foot. It's a bleak land."

Doc Tanner coughed to clear his throat. "We blunder across the Deathlands, like children, lost in a maze, like the players of some celestial game where we know neither the object nor the rules."

"What's your point, Doc?" Ryan asked.

"The point, my dear and somewhat brutal Mr. Cawdor, is that we could have here a chance, rare as Vatican charity, to improve our tiny store of knowledge."

"The message, you mean?"

"Indeed, I do. I, for one, am set that we should continue across this darkling plain, blighted by the long-dead ignorant armies."

"But we don't know where we're heading," J.B. said. "Got no radios with us."

"Ah, Mr. Dix," the old man said, grinning. "That is where you are wrong. Show the nice gentleman the pretty toy you found on the floor of this rumbling behemoth, dear child."

Lori smiled at him and reached inside her gray fur coat, pulling out a small black plastic box with a dial and several buttons.

Finn glanced sideways at it. "Fucking ace, lady. Nice little radio-trans. Where didja find it, Lori?"

"Under the seat when I get in."

"Got in," Doc Tanner corrected gently.

"It work?" Jak asked.

"Sure does, son," the old man replied. "You found that recorded message on the dial last time, Finn, did you not?"

"Yeah."

"Can you do it on this?"

"Sure. Strength of the signal should tell us if'n we're heading in the right fucking direction. Someone else can drive this crumbling shit heap a spell."

J.B. took over, muttering to himself in a bad-tempered monotone at the way the steering was becoming loose. Finn changed seats and took the little radio from the girl, peering at it in the light from the east of the valley.

"I think it was" he began.

There was a faint crackling of static and hissing. Ryan had read in an old book, from before the Apocalypse, that in the golden age it was possible to spin the dial on a radio-trans and pick up hundreds of different stations, all broadcasting at once. Now you were very lucky to pick up even a single station.

"Mebbe we've gone wrong," Krysty suggested.

"Mebbe we"

The voice was deafeningly loud, booming out in the cab of the Kenworth, repeating the same message they'd heard before.

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