Sheepishly, but still somehow defiantly, the hot banger girl, Teresa, glared up at him. She’d obviously removed a few of the boxes of ammo and hidden under the tarp. She’d stowed away. And she wasn’t alone. The weird little kid was there, too, hiding around her ankles like a pet cat. With a scowl, Lumler glared back.
“Whatta we got here?” he said, calling the others attention. “Looks like a stowaway or two. Maybe one and a half.”
Clustering around, the raiding party reacted variously, but the Plague-doctor, Kaes, about flipped his lid. Slapping himself on the forehead, he sounded like he was going to cry.
“Teresa, what the hell are you doing?” he pleaded. “I thought we agreed, you’d stay behind! Well, it’s no good, anyway. You’ll just have to go back. You and the kid, you can take one of the carts and just head right back to the Council HQ.”
“Nuh uhn,” said Teresa, rising from her hiding place. “I ain’t gonna go back. An’ you can’t make me, neither.”
“Teresa, please!” said Kaes. “We’ve been over this! Now please don’t argue with me!”
Lumler scowled angrily. This was sure as shit no time for these two lovebirds to be playing house! Unable to hold his tongue any more, he shook his big head and cut the doctor off.
“Hey, enough!” he grated. “We ain’t got time for this shit. Either she comes or she goes, but let’s decide and get movin’.”
“Yeah,” said Santiago, standing nearby. “No offense you two, but we are on a timetable here.”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” said Kaes sternly. “She’s going.”
“Am not!” said Teresa.
Lumler saw that she’d managed to find a combat suit that fit her and that she was toting more ordnance than a gun shop. The weird thing was, on her, it didn’t look the least bit out of place. After a lot of wrangling and bad noise, it came down to Kaes against the rest of them. Only he wanted Teresa and the Kid to leave. The rest of them saw her as Lumler did, as an asset to the group, a skilled fighter who knew her way around a firearm. Kaes, though, stuck to his guns, the stubborn bastard.
“It’s not just…” argued Kaes. He turned to Teresa. “We have to tell them,” he said. “About, you know!”
The girl shrugged at Kaes. “That don’ matter,” she said firmly. “Ya said yerself, if you don’ get to Cali, we all gonna die. Right? Even our kid.”
“Your what?” said Santiago, shaking his head. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but we can’t stand here all day arguing! We’ve got to move!”
Kaes finally gave up. Maybe it was the weight of general opinion, like peer pressure, or time pressing on him, or maybe he just realized that the girl was right, but for whatever reason he finally, reluctantly slumped and nodded.
“I suppose you’re right,” he told Teresa. “If we don’t make it, you wouldn’t be safe for long anyway.”
“Don’ worry, Case,” she told him, grinning like a maniac. “You got me here, now. You an’ Misser Lampert gonna be on yer way to Cali in no time!”
“OK, great,” said Lumler. “We got that sorted out. Now can we go?”
“Yes, of course,” said Kaes, all frowns and furrowed brow. “Let’s go.”
They all climbed back aboard the cart train. Kaes sat with Teresa and the Kid. To Lumler, they made a nice group, like a family. In better times, and if they weren’t armed and dressed in combat gear, he could easily have pictured them on a ride at Disneyland or enjoying a day in the park. It made him feel strange somehow, sort of sad and happy at the same time, but his blunt nature simply dismissed it as nostalgia and moved on.
Once back underway, they made good time and, before long, had come to the narrow spot where they would have to leave the cart train and go on foot. Here they all loaded up on weapons and gear, switched on a couple of flashlights, and then splashed quietly down the next tunnel. After maybe five or six city blocks, they came to a manhole, the same as dozens of others they’d passed, reaching up to the surface, where Santiago stopped and looked up.
“This is the one,” he said. “Opens up right down the street from the mansion.” He looked back to the group. “Well?” he said, grinning wickedly. “Are we all ready to go?”
They all nodded. Dr. Kaes started to say something but then clapped his mouth shut.
“OK then,” said Santiago. “We’ve been through this a million times. Just stick to the plan and keep calm and everything’ll go just fine.” He sighed and gave each of them a hard look. “OK,” he finally nodded, “let’s do this.” And they started climbing up the rusted iron rungs.
Lumler, bringing up the rear, waited patiently for his turn and checked and re-checked his weapons. Finally he was alone in the sewer tunnel. For a second, he thought of just not climbing up after the others, simply slinking off down the tunnels and away from this crazy bunch of do-gooding maniacs, but then he shrugged to himself and started climbing.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Q. Knock, knock
A. Who’s there?
Q. Survivor
A. Survivor who? Now get the hell away from here before I blow your damned head off.
In spite of all that was on the line, Teresa couldn’t help but be excited. This kind of stuff, sneaking around, ambushing people, shooting guns and all, well it just made her feel alive, like good sex or the best kinds of stupidwater. Oh, she knew that Justin didn’t approve of this kind of thing; he was a real C-head about hurting people—any people, no matter how bad—and got all scaredy when there were bullets flying, and it vaguely bothered her that this all bothered him, but she just couldn’t help it. This was fun!
At the moment, she was lying flat on her belly in a thick patch of weeds in an alley behind a great big brick building all surrounded by a tall brick fence with lights and barbed wire and guards, this imposing thing they called the Governor’s Mansion. She wasn’t sure what a “mansion” was, but if this was a good example, she decided that, on the whole, it would be lots better to be inside of one than out. At any rate, from up close it was pretty nasty-looking.
This place they called New America didn’t seem too appealing, either. All of the buildings were dark and quiet, but with the sense that there were people, hidden in the bricks and metal somewhere, maybe watching and listening. It made her edgy and claustrophobic and she wished there was more open space and clearer lines of sight.
At her side was the big lady named Still, the one with all the knives. Since she was the only one who could fly a plane, a vital part of the plan, it had been decided that she, like Case and the Old Man, would wait for the others to clear the way. Teresa didn’t know anything about her, but Still carried herself well and didn’t make too much noise, plus she had all of those nice sharp throwing blades. As far as Teresa was concerned, and until she proved otherwise, Still was OK.
Behind them, in even deeper cover, were Case and the Old Man, huddled under a camouflaged tarp. The rest of the group was off, supposedly dealing with the guards, and she and Still had been given the job of guarding these two. It was fine with Teresa; storming guarded compounds wasn’t exactly her kind of thing.
The Kid was here, too, somewhere. She’d tried to get him to stay back at the Council HQ, but it been like talking to an animal, like a dog or a cat that was going to follow you wherever you went no matter what you said or did, and so she’d finally relented and let him follow along. At the moment, she had no idea where he was. As soon as they’d crawled up out of the sewer, he’d vanished into the darkness like smoke. She wasn’t worried about him, though. He’d proven already that he could more than take care of himself. Likely he was lurking in the bushes somewhere nearby.