“Never mind that,” snapped the Hunter. For a moment he considered his options. Then he looked back to the Old Man and cocked his head. “Just get into the car, OK? I’ll let ya ride in the shotgun seat. OK? Happy? And all I ask is one little thing.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“That you shut. The fuck. Up.”
A snort of suppressed laughter came from the nurse in the back seat. Lampert gave a wheezing laugh of his own and slapped his thigh.
“Well, we’ll just see about that,” he said, shaking his head. “But OK. I’ll do my best to keep a lid on it. Deal?”
“Just get in.”
For a long time, the Old Man was good to his word and they hummed along in relative silence. The road, while potholed and weed-grown, was straight and level, with few wrecks or pile-ups, and the Hunter used the opportunity to survey the various gauges and meters in the dashboard, looking for one in particular, until he saw what he’d hoped for—a radiation detector—and relaxed. He could live without tachometers and fuel gauges and such, but a Geiger counter would soon be absolutely essential. After a quiet few hours, the Old Man, true to form, just couldn’t stay still.
“Ya know something?” he said, staring out the window. “I ain’t so sure this isn’t actually a good thing. The Fall, I mean.”
That got the Hunter’s attention. Lazily, he glanced over at the Old Man.
“What’s good about it?” he had to ask.
“Well, for one thing,” said Lampert, lighting a smoke, “it means the end of the fucking United States of America. And good fucking riddance, far as I’m concerned.”
“And what,” the Hunter stonily, “was wrong with the United States?”
“Phhh, don’t get me started,” said Lampert, waving a bony, spotted hand. “But, just for fun, I’ll give ya an example. Show ya what I mean.”
The Hunter rolled his eyes and waited.
“Remember Nine Eleven?” asked the Old Man, lighting up a cigarette. “The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington? The jets flyin’ into the World Trade Center?”
“Sure. Read about that in school. Pretty big deal, right? Led to the first Pan-Islamic Congress, an’ that led to the Jerusalem Accords and—.”
“Yeah, whatever,” interrupted Lampert. “That ain’t what I’m talkin’ about. No, what I’m talkin’ about is right after the attacks, when the country went to war and they started sellin’ these stupid little decals that people bought for their cars. On account of this shitty pop song by an even shittier group called Tony Orlando and Dawn, which was about a convict being let outta prison, by the way, not a soldier at all… Anyway, these things were yellow, in the shape of a ribbon. And they said Support Our Troops on ‘em. Idea was, you’d buy one’a these things and stick it on your car, right? Show that you were like, patriotic, I guess. Like payin’ yer god damn taxes wasn’t good enough. But here’s the thing: no one ever asked who was sellin’ these stupid fuckin’ things! Did the profit go to disabled Vets or something? Did the money go to war widows and orphans? Who the fuck knows?! Shit, for all those jackasses knew, the decal company was owned by the fucking Taliban! But did they ever ask about it, or even fuckin’ think about it? Oh, hell no! Just buy one’a them decals, slap ‘er on there, and boom! You can quit thinkin’ about how we’re busy killin’ people on the other side of the world and get back to workin’ on yer next heart attack. And the decal company gets good an’ fuckin’ rich. Stupid fuckin’ bastards.”
The Hunter smiled, a thin line upturned on his impassive face, and nodded.
“Always suckers, old man,” he said. “Always been, always will be.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure,” said Lampert, flicking ash out the window. “But lately, there’s sure as shit a whole lot less of ‘em, an’ that’s my point. Maybe this plague wasn’t the worst thing that coulda happened.”
Shaking his head, the Hunter gave a low whistle. “That’s harsh,” he said. “All them moms and dads and their little kids? An’ now all the gangs and cannibals and disasters an’ shit? I don’t know…”
“Eh, who cares?” said Lampert irritably, and snapped his cigarette butt out the window. “You, me, Nurse Cass back there, everybody, we’re all gonna buy it, soon or later. Me sooner, of course, but that goes without sayin’. You guys might even die of old age before the plague comes back. But, according to the CDC guys, Doc Case an’ all, it will come back. Over an’ over until everybody’s gone. And then? Well, shit, then the planet’ll take itself back and there’ll be nobody left to care that there ever was such a thing as the United States. So long and that is fuckin’ that. Know what I mean?”
“Guess so,” said the Hunter noncommittally. Grumbling, the Old Man went back to his own thoughts and staring out the window. The Hunter drove on, thinking despite himself about what the Old Man had said.
When the sun started to set, maybe two hours after their rest stop, the Hunter, watching the power level drop like a stone, cursed the vehicle, slapped the steering wheel, and pulled over to the side of the road. Damn solar cars! If he still had his bike, they’d be in New America already! And who would have guessed? A tornado?! Bitterly, he sat and stared at the setting sun for a moment.
“Outta juice, huh?” said the Old Man. “Well, ain’t that a bitch. So whatta we gonna do now?”
“Wait,” said the Hunter. “Rest.”
Opening his door, he got out of the car and stretched. The night wind had begun, a soft, cool breeze that smelled of sage and wet dirt. From somewhere off to their right came the sharp yips of a coyote or two. Overhead, purple clouds, offset by the first bright stars, floated in an indigo sky. For a long moment he stared down the highway to the north and thought again about the rad-meter in the car. Or rather, of its relative effectiveness. He was still thinking when he was startled by the Old Man at his side.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?” asked Lampert rudely.
“Nothin’,” said the Hunter. “Not a god damn thing.”
“Cause ya look worried,” the Old Man persisted. “An’ from what I’ve seen of you, that can’t be a good thing.”
The Hunter sighed and turned to Lampert. “You really wanna know, old dude?”
Lampert nodded. “Why not?” he shrugged. “How bad can it be?”
“Pretty fuckin’ bad,” the Hunter said. He pointed down the road. “Ya see old man, up ahead there’s what they used to call Wolf Creek One, just outside’a what they used to call Burlington, Kansas. Ever heard of it?”
“Nope.”
“Din’t think so. Wolf Creek One was a nuke reactor, and it melted down.”
“Oh, great,” said Lampert, rolling his eyes. “That sounds like lots of fun! But I guess I’m confused. I thought all those old nukes had melted down. Or most of ‘em, anyway. I mean, the CDC guys had to make some pretty serious detours on our little trip, because of the radiation, so why is this one such a big deal?”
“Cause this one,” said the Hunter, “melted down but it didn’t blow up. The containment structure is still intact. Or it was, anyway, last time I came by here.”
“Ah hah,” said Lampert. “Now I get what you mean. You’re worried it’s blown its top since then.”
“Bingo.”
“What about the car?” asked Lampert. “I mean, shit, all those dials and switches and shit in there, you’d think one of ‘em was a Geiger counter.”
“One is,” said the Hunter. “And we’re gonna sure as shit need it.”
The Old Man nodded and shrugged. “Well, that’s how it goes these days, I guess. Everything’s fallin’ apart. It’s kinda like that poem by what’s his face, Yeats, the one about how “the center does not hold, the rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem”, all that.”