J.B. joined him as he flashed his torch into the entrance. They saw a tunnel that dropped vertically about thirty feet, with a white-painted set of ladders, its rungs throwing sharp shadows.
"Going in, Ryan?"
"We got time. I'd kind of like to see inside one of these places."
He went first, slinging his H&K caseless over his shoulder. It was obvious that the shelter hadn't been opened for a century. It was probably one of the few totally safe places in all of Deathlands.
There was a door at the bottom, with a simple catch on it. Stuck to it with contact adhesive was a flowery notice. It said: "Don 'n' Peggy's place. If you got no beer, you can't come in."
A smaller card said: "This is the golden door that has a silver lining."
The shelter was small and cramped, with a living space opening to a couple of bunks. There was a kitchen area and toilet and washbasin. Beyond that was another door that hid the controls, generator, air purifier, water recycler and stores.
Ryan saw the two corpses immediately.
Unlike those above ground, these hadn't deteriorated into skeletons. They were mummified bodies, leathery lips peeled back off yellowed teeth. The skin had shrunk and tightened across the faces, showing the skulls that lay beneath.
The woman, with long black hair, lay on one of the bunks, looking as though she'd been laid out in a funeral home. The skeletal hands were folded neatly on her shrunken breasts. She wore pale blue dungarees, stained and filthy, with a black and white badge pinned to the shoulder strap. Both J.B. and Ryan recognized it from old books as the emblem of a society that opposed all forms of nuke growth.
"Didn't do her no good," said J.B., his voice flat and muffled in the cramped metal tomb.
The man's body was in the John, huddled over the chemical toilet-bowl, almost as if he was at prayer.
"Looks like he died puking," commented Ryan.
There was plenty of food in tins. J.B. switched on the water purifier and found it still functioned. Ryan sat down on a canvas chair, looked around the shelter and saw a primitive vid-machine, with a camera wired to it. He pressed the button marked Battery, and a faint red light glowed on the display, as if some tiny hibernating creature had just been awakened. "It works, J.B. Ч it works."
He wasn't totally surprised. In some of the better-protected redoubts that they'd found during the years with the Trader, they'd quite often come across battery-operated machinery that still functioned. But generally the charge was only held for a few minutes, and then the equipment would grind to a halt forever.
"Press the On button on the telly there."
J.B. hit the starter, and the screen lightened, revealing a jagged pattern of gray and white. Ryan had already noticed that there was a reel sitting in the vid-machine. He leaned forward and pressed the control to set it in motion.
"You don't think there's..." The voice of the Armorer faded away into a stillness that verged on awe.
The jagged dashes and dots changed to colored splashes and streaks. The speaker crackled, and then they heard the sound of music.
"Testing, five and four and three. Coming through real good. Just turn off my new Pogues compact. There." The music ceased.
Suddenly something appeared on the screen, a great blurred outline, like a football. It vanished, and then they saw the head and shoulders of a man who sat in the same chair where Ryan now sat. He looked to be around fifty years of age, with thinning black hair and a small neat mustache. He had plump, well-shaved cheeks and immaculate teeth. Teeth so good they couldn't possibly have been genuine. He wore a bright shirt, decorated with garish bananas and pineapples. On his right hand was a ruby fraternity ring and on his wrist a platinum Rolex watch.
"Hi there to the future." There was a sheepish grin on his face, and he seemed a little embarrassed at his own presentation. "My name's Donald Haggard, and I'm an optometrist here in West Lowellton, part of the great city of Lafayette in the great state of Louisiana. Don't know rightly why I'm telling you this, because I guess you'll know all that. I've just broken off from Christmas brunch to tell you a little 'bout... Guess I damned near forgot to tell you the date. It's December 25, in the year 2000. Wanted to make this here vid as a kinda record, I guess, of what's going on here right now."
While Ryan and J.B. sat there, spellbound by this message from a dead man, Don Haggard went on to outline the political situation. The tensions between East and West, the problems in Libya, in South Africa, in the Philippines, in Cuba. In the northern cities of Great Britain and in Israel.
"Seems like the whole world is just waiting for someone to push the first button."
He talked a little about his wife, Peggy, who worked locally in telephone sales, and their three sons, Johnny, Dwight and Merle.
"Guess you know from that what kind of music I'm into," he guffawed. J.B. and Ryan looked at each other blankly.
The picture wobbled, and the gears of the vid-machine grated and whined as if they were about to give up. Ryan leaned in the chair and pressed the Fast Forward button, letting it go ahead for several seconds.
"Don't have time to watch all this, J.B.," he said. "Mebbe take it with us."
"Stop it here."
Don was back, looking rather less cool and in control than he had on Christmas Day. "Things don't," he began. "Sorry. Start with date. It's January 15, 2001. Yeah. Government tells us not to worry. Motherfuckers. Not to worry. They don't live out in the open. They've got their bunkers and hideouts. Me an' Peggy'll be fine. What about them good old boys of ours? Where do they go? Can't come in here. Built for two. Jesus on the fucking cross, what a mess!"
"Can't have been a big magnetic pulse in the skies round here," commented J.B. "Would have cut off all the electrics."
Haggard rambled on a while longer, cursing the politicians, both Russian and American, for letting things slide to the brink of war.
Ryan ran the tape farther forward, watching the dancing picture and halting it when there was an obvious change of time.
"January 24." Looking'at his watch, Don went on. "Late morning, I think. Watch stopped. Guess it's around ten-thirty. Peggy's worse, crying and throwing up and taking on so."
Don looked terrible. His shirt was stained and dirty, and he was pale and unshaven. His eyes were sunken, and he had obviously been weeping. "I'm real fine, folks. Whoever you are. Felt the bangs again a day back. Last night, maybe. Not sure. Bet I'm real fine and so's Peggy. Just a mite sickly. See my hand shaking some. Should have stocked up on liquor, Never thought 'bout that when I built this place. Saved our lives, I guess. Can't tell for sure. Haven't been up top. Won't yet."
J.B, walked across the room and removed a knife from a neat mounting on the wall. "Tekna." He held it up, showing Ryan the five holes in the hilt and the distinctive double sawing edge. "Surgical steel with a high chrome content. Haven't seen one in years. I'll take it." Sheathing it, he hooked it on his belt.
Ryan pushed the Fast Forward control, stopping it when the man's head vanished in a blur of visual static. He glanced at his chron again, seeing they still had a little time. To watch this film was even more amazing than being in a vid-house or a Holiday Inn. Seeing this vid was to witness the beginning of the long winters, as it was happening. The neutron bombs had fallen, infecting everyone with a lethal burst of nuke energy.