Axler, James - Deathlands 48 by Axler James

Author:Axler, James
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Twelve

Splashing through the wetlands, the LAV-25 of Alpha team rolled over snakes and logs with equal ease.

Gators bawed at the vehicle's approach, but backed away from its bad smell and retreated to their secret underwater lairs. Humming insects bobbed about the machine, searching for flesh to feed upon, but found only impenetrable steel and sizzling hot exhaust, the reek killing them in midair. Snug inside, the sec men relaxed in the cool breeze of the air conditioner and ate a meal from MRE packs.

The armored wag dipped as its front wheels found a deep hole, then leveled as the back wheels spun in the mud and forced the APC onto hard ground. Thick Spanish moss hung in curtains off the sickly trees, black birds with two heads flying slowly through the humid air. Everywhere the rusted bodies of predark cars dotted the wetlands. Hoods had been removed, displaying mossy engine blocks to the inclement weather, or exposing gaping holes where the engines had once been. Some of the wags were completely submerged under the water, only their roofs showing, or thin antennas sticking up like metallic reeds.

Smoking a cig and eating a sandwich, Lieutenant Brandon wasn't surprised by the condition of the vehicles. Auto junkyards could be looted for lots of thingstires to resole boots, windshields removed to be windows in a house, seat cloth to make clothing. Radiators made good stills to cook shine, old-fashioned batteries had lead plates inside to melt into new bullets. Sometimes there were even tool kits in the trunks, or better, suitcases full of clean clothes and sometimes even blasters. The fuel tanks were always empty. There were magnets in the radio speakers a smart person could use to make compass needles, the needles coming from manual carburetors, not those fancy injector things. Those were useless. Floor mats sown together made rain gear that could keep you alive in an acid rain storm, and paper maps in the little dashboard box could be used when you went to the lav. The plastic ones were only good for patching a small hole in a roof, but the papers ones were very good. Oil pans were good cooking pots, hubcaps could be used as plates. Safety harnesses could be made into belts, and you could use the mirrors to reflect candlelight, making one as bright as two. And for reasons lost in time, a lot of cars carried bags of sand or rock salt for no reason anybody had ever figured out.

Rolling over the wrecks, smashing bodies and cracking windshields, the LAV-25 plowed relentlessly through a hanging wall of creepers, passing a tiny island in the shallow water. A few trees covered with moss partially hid a ramshackle hut of tin and plywood. Rusty license plates shingled the roof, strips of fibrous material from the dashboard firewalls peeking out from underneath, and shiny hubcaps dotted the walls, but there was no way of knowing whether those were for protection or merely decoration.

A hairy man clothed

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